True Catholic Belief, UK Edition.

I really do not know why I failed to write about this at the time of release – I can only imagine that it was because there was so much information coming out around the papal visit, that I simply could not keep up. The findings of this survey however are valuable still, confirming similar research findings from other parts of the world: what Catholics in fact believe, does not coincide with what the Vatican claims we believe. In a survey for ITV of 1,636 Catholic adults in Britain prior to last September’s papal visit, these were the key findings:

Broadly Orthodox	Not Supportive
Artificial contraception: 4% agree  it should not be used	Artificial contraception: 71% believe should be used more often, to avoid pregnancy and STD infection
Abortion 11% agree “only as indirect consequence of life-saving treatment” 6% – should never be permitted	Abortion 44% believe termination should be permitted for rape, incest, sever disability to child; 30% should always be allowed
Homosexuality 11% agree homosexual acts are wrong	Homosexuality 41% said homosexual relationships should be celebrated along with heterosexual ones.
Clerical Celibacy Just one third supported compulsory celibacy for priests	Clerical Celibacy 65% believed priests should be allowed to marry

 

The sensus fidelium requires that to be valid, a teaching must have the assent of the Church as a whole. Now I confirm once again that the SF is not determined by a simple matter of opinion polls, but the evidence of such extensive disagreement does at least prompt the obvious question: what grounds exist for believing the opposite, that these teachings on sexual ethics do in fact have the assent of the Church as a whole?

These results also demonstrate the importance of constantly challenging the bishops, drawing their attention to the obvious disjunction between abstract Vatican orthodoxy and the views of those Catholics with real-world sexual experience, so as to fashion sexual teaching with some foundation in reality.

This was the response to the results by the UK reform group, Catholic Voices for Reform

What the survey confirms very strongly is that Catholic Voices for Reform is correct in its claim that the Church has reached a stage where an open discussion about how the Church can best fulfil its sacred mission in the modern world is the only way forward.

Concerns and needs should always be brought to the Bishops and shared among others of the laity as is perfectly legal in Church law. (Can. 212 (3))  Those who ask for dialogue and reform are demonstrating loyalty in their commitment to the Roman Catholic Church.

We now call upon our all of our bishops to initiate a full and open dialogue involving the whole Church in England and Wales, laity, priests and bishops, to cover all of these issues which are already being discussed by Catholics all over the country after Sunday Mass and on other occasions when they meet.

Such a discussion should include:

1. Governance of the Church in England and Wales and the role of the laity, with a view to introducing fully inclusive governance through collaboration at parish, diocesan and national level.
2. The requirement for compulsory celibacy for priests.
3. The treatment of people of a different sexual orientation and others who feel separated and excluded from the Church.
4. The role of women in Church ministry.
5. The imposition of the new translation of the liturgy.

We believe that, in the true spirit of collegiality and subsidiarity, as indicated in outcomes of the Second Vatican Council, it is appropriate for the Church in England and Wales to make a genuine effort to listen to lay Catholics and consult with them in the most collaborative way.

Related articles

• Catholicism’s Future is “Up to the Laity” (The Wild Reed)
• Pray, Don’t Pay, Disobey: The Catholic Revolution Has Begun. (Queering the Church)
• Robert McClory on the Anti-Gospel of Catholic Leaders, and Exodus from Catholic Church (Bilgrimage)
• A Reader’s Excellent Questions On Celibacy. (Queering the church)
• The Prada Is On The Other Foot (Enlightened Catholicism)
• Long Goodbye: Why Some Devout Catholics Are Leaving the Church (Commonweal)

John XXI: The Pope Who Promoted Birth Control, Abortion and Aphrodisiacs

I love the oddities that can be discovered in the lesser known corners of Church history. Peter of Spain has gone down in history as Pope John XXI, whose brief papacy (1276 – 77) ended when part of the ceiling of his library fell on his head. He is also the only pope placed by Dante in the third book, “Paradiso” of the Divine Comedy. (He placed in Inferno, or Purgatorio – which says something of his view of the papacy.)

 

What British Catholics Believe, vs Vatican Doctrine.

Once again, two opinion polls (for ITV, and for the BBC) have demonstrated what we all know, but pay insufficient attention to: the enormous chasm that divides Catholic belief as is is, and what Vatican doctrine proclaims it ought to be.

 

On the ministry itself, whether it is priestly celibacy or women’s ministry, and especially on all matters of sexual ethics, what British Catholics in fact believe is very different from what the Vatican functionaries proclaim it ought to be. This is no surprise – exactly the same pattern is found the world over – only the detailed numbers change, not the basic fact of divergence.

What (European) Catholics Believe.

The Economist this week has an excellent analysis of the state of the Catholic Church in Europe . Headlined  “The Void Within“, it argues that the church is “hollowing out” at it’s centre. It’s not a flattering picture, but is worth reading in full.

The bottom line is that barring a few exceptions, the Church in Europe is in precipitous decline. There has been a gradual erosion of loyalty and attendance for many years, but this has accelerated since the abuse crisis, and is compounded by a dramatic collapse of church structures and clergy:

….in many European places where Catholicism remained all-powerful until say, 1960, the church is losing whatever remains of its grip on society at an accelerating pace. The drop in active adherence to, and knowledge of, Christianity is a long-running and gentle trend; but the hollowing out of church structures—parishes, monasteries, schools, universities, charities—is more dramatic. That is the backdrop against which the paedophile scandal, now raging across Europe after its explosion in the United States, has to be understood. The church’s fading institutional power makes it (mercifully) easier for people who were abused by clerics to speak out; and as horrors are laid bare, the church, in many people’s eyes, grows even weaker.

Abortion: “A Bracing Walk in History”

There can be few hot-button issues in the church so calculated to arouse the passions as abortion.  Yesterday, I read a post by William Lindsey at Bilgrimage on the current debate – or lack of rational debate.  What should be reasoned discussion, has instead been appropriated for other reasons:

Most of all, I’m unpersuaded because I don’t really hear anti-abortion activists trying to persuade me. Not through reason, that is. Not through the same kind of reason that all other groups, religious or otherwise, seek to use in the public square, when they want to get the rest of us to buy into the legitimacy of a moral or political argument.

I feel bullied, threatened, shouted at. I don’t feel engaged in a reasonable discussion. I haven’t found any of the anti-abortion activists I know or observe in the media or at public gatherings focusing on reason at all. I find them doing something else, and that is the starting point for my fundamental concerns about the anti-abortion movement, and what it intends.

Typically for any writing about abortion, this has itself generated discussion in the comments, some reasoned, some simple ridicule. Bill has followed up since with a follow-up “Reader Responds” post, reflecting on an extended comment by Colleen Kochinvar – Baker.

For what its worth, my own view has sympathy with both sides, and so I tend not to have strong feelings on the matter. I am pro-life, in that I am instinctively opposed to abortion in general as morally wrong.  I am also pro-choice, in that I believe we should respect the right of others to disagree in good conscience.

But I do not want to get into the substance of the abortion debate here.  Instead, I would like to share some further ideas from my internet ramblings yesterday.