The Nation's Pulse by Frank Newport, Editor in Chief The Gallup Poll
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II was clearly revered among American Catholics, two-thirds of whom say he will go down in history as one of the greatest popes, and 7 in 10 of whom say the Catholic Church will eventually make John Paul II a saint.
About one-quarter of American adults are Catholic, a percentage that has really not changed much over time. Thus, Catholicism is by no means the dominant Christian religion in the United States. Well over half of American Christians identify with a Christian faith other than Catholicism.
Still, even non-Catholics in the United States believe the choice of a new pope will be significant. Forty-one percent of non-Catholics say the new pope will matter a great deal to the world, and another 35% say it will matter a moderate amount. Fifty-five percent of U.S. Catholics say the choice of a new pope will matter a great deal. I find it interesting, however, that only 36% of U.S. Catholics say it matters a great deal to them personally who gets chosen as pope, while about a third say that it won't matter much to them at all.
An analysis of more than 24,000 responses to Gallup's religious preference question in 2004 shows Catholics are no longer significantly different from the rest of the country on standard measures of religiosity. Catholics used to attend church more frequently than others. No more. And Catholics are actually less likely than non-Catholics to indicate that religion is very important in their daily lives.
What else do we know about American Catholics? They are much more likely to live on the East Coast than any other region, and are less likely to live in the South (which is dominated by Protestants). Catholics are slightly overrepresented among Americans with higher incomes, in contrast to Protestants, whose incomes skew lower.
Politically, Catholics are not sharply differentiated from the rest of the country. They are slightly more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans or independents, but these differences are not large. This also stands in contrast to Protestants, who are significantly more likely to identify as Republicans than as either Democrats or independents.
Gallup routinely asks Americans to identify with one of three ideological labels: conservative, moderate, or liberal. Catholics are not significantly more likely than the overall population to identify with any of these labels. Again, Protestants are much more likely than average to say they are conservatives.
From a theological perspective, Gallup's weekend poll confirms Catholics tilt toward desiring a more liberal pope. Although the majority (59%) of Catholics say the new pope should be about the same as Pope John Paul II, a third say the new pope should be more liberal (only 4% say the new pope should be more conservative than John Paul II).
There is even stronger evidence in the poll that American Catholics would like the new pope to adopt more liberal positions on a list of specific issues. Perhaps most importantly, 63% of American Catholics want a new pope to allow priests to marry, and 55% think women should be ordained as priests. These sentiments may reflect a reaction to the child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in the United States in recent years. But a look at Gallup's historical data shows Catholics have favored such reforms for a number of years. For example, in a June 1971 Gallup Poll, 54% of Catholics favored allowing priests to marry and continue functioning as priests. In 1993, 64% of Catholics agreed it would be a good thing if women were allowed to be ordained as priests.
Still, there is not much desire among Catholics for the new pope to relent on abortion; a majority of Catholics say he should not "make church doctrine on abortion less strict."
Gallup's weekend poll also shows practicing Catholics (those who attend church weekly or more often) are more conservative than other Catholics in terms of these proposed changes. In other words, active Catholics are less sure that the new pope should alter the church's position on these issues. The sample sizes involved are small, but the results are not surprising. I presume many Catholics who are dissatisfied with the Catholic Church's stance on these types of issues have "voted with their feet" and no longer attend services actively.
Still, this distinction between conservative, churchgoing Catholics and liberal, non-churchgoing Catholics highlights one of the many dilemmas faced by the Catholic Church today: modernize in order to attract lapsed Catholics who are more liberal in orientation, or stick to more conservative positions that please the core Catholic constituency, which wants the church to remain distinct from the rest of society in terms of its positions on social issues.