American Catholics Accept Non-Traditional Families, New Survey Finds
Pew Research Center survey examines Catholic views in advance of Pope Francis' first visit to the U.S.
By Noreen O'Donnell ••
American Catholics are markedly tolerant of non-traditional families, with large majorities open to divorced, single, unmarried and gay parents, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday in advance of Pope Francis’ visit to the United States for a meeting on families.
Although nine in 10 U.S. Catholics say a family headed by a married mother and father is ideal, most say other types of families are acceptable. Eighty-seven percent are okay with single parents, 83 percent with divorced parents, 84 percent with unmarried parents and 66 percent with gay parents.
The findings, many out of step with church teachings, come as Francis tries to change the tone of the 1.2 billion-member church that he leads. He has refused to judge gay priests, called for a larger role for women, and though not approving of contraception has said that being a good Catholic does not mean “you have to be like rabbits.” He has criticized what he called an obsession with abortion, gay marriage and contraception and wants the Catholic church to be a home for all.
In the latest break with tradition, the Vatican announced on Tuesday that Francis would allow all priests to forgive women who have had an abortion during the church’s upcoming Holy Year of Mercy, which begins Dec. 8. A woman who has had an abortion is usually excommunicated unless she confesses and receives absolution, typically from a bishop.
Six in 10 Catholics say abortion is a sin, according to the report.
The survey examined topics that could be discussed at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia later this month and at the October Synod of Bishops in Rome, among them family life and sexuality. It also looked at Americans' connection to the Catholic church, whether as their religion, culture or ancestry. Most of the question in the survey are new, said Jessica Hamar Martinez, a senior researcher in Religion & Public Life for the Pew Research Center.
Forty-five percent of Americans are Catholic or are in some way connected to Catholicism. One fifth say it is their religion now, while one tenth say they were raised as Catholics but have fallen away from the church, according to the survey. A similar share say they still have a cultural connection to Catholicism. Of those cultural Catholics who were raised in the church, four in 10 say they could imagine returning one day.
But many views expressed by Catholics are not in accordance with the church’s beliefs.
Fewer than half say homosexual behavior, remarriage without annulment, living with a romantic partner and contraception are sins, the report found. Seven in 10 Catholics support married couples who choose not to have children.
Many Catholics say they would like their church to be more flexible toward those who are divorced, who are living with a partner without marriage or who are in same-sex relationships. Six in 10 think Catholics living together or divorced and remarried without an annulment should be allowed to receive Communion. Nearly half, 46 percent, say the church should recognize same-sex marriages.
On many of the questions, Catholics resemble the general public in their views. But there were significant differences in the responses to some questions, Martinez noted. For example Catholics are about as likely as Protestants to say that having an abortion is a sin, 57 percent of Catholics to 60 percent of Protestants, but less likely than Protestants to say engaging in homosexual behavior is sinful, 44 percent of Catholics to 62 percent of Protestants. And Catholics are more likely to say it is acceptable for a man and woman to live together without being married, 55 percent, than white evangelical Protestants, 27 percent, or black Protestants, 42 percent, but less likely than those who are religiously unaffiliated, 81 percent.
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Pope Francis arrives to celebrate Mass at the Marian shrine, in Sumuleu Ciuc, Romania, Saturday, June 1, 2019. Francis began a three-day pilgrimage to Romania on Friday that in many ways is completing the 1999 trip by St. John Paul II that marked the first-ever papal visit to a majority Orthodox country.
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Pope Francis holds a candle as he presides over a solemn Easter vigil ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Saturday, April 20, 2019.
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Pope Francis celebrates Mass at Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat, Morocco, Sunday, March 31, 2019. Pope Francis was in Morocco for a two-day trip aimed at highlighting the North African nation's Christian-Muslim ties, while also showing solidarity with migrants at Europe's door and tending to a tiny Catholic flock.
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Pope Francis attends the opening of the meeting on the protection of minors in the Church at the Synod Hall in Vatican City, Vatican on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019. The pope has said the world expects concrete measures to tackle child sexual abuse by priests and not only simple and obvious condemnations.
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Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Egypt's Al-Azhar, left, welcomes Pope Francis ahead of a private meeting with members of the Muslim council of elders, at the Grand Mosque of Sheikh Zayed, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Feb. 4, 2019. Francis' speech to the gathering of faith leaders on Monday evening is to be the highlight of his brief, 40-hour visit to Abu Dhabi, the first to the Arabian Peninsula by a pope.
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Pope Francis twirls a soccer ball presented by a member of the Circus of Cuba, during his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall, at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019.
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A child climbs onstage where Pope Francis and Archbishop George Gaenswein hold the pontiff weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Nov. 28, 2018. Pope Francis has praised the freedom, albeit undisciplined, of the hearing impaired child who climbed onto the stage during his general audience to play. The Swiss Guards and Vatican gendarmes stood by Wednesday and gamely let the young boy run around Francis as monsignors read out his catechism lesson in multiple languages.
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Pope Francis prays inside St Mary's Pro Cathedral during his visit to Dublin, Ireland, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018.
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Pope Francis passes by a banner of a protester as he leaves after visiting St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, in Dublin, Ireland, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018.
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Pope Francis signs a guest book as he meets with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, in Dublin, Ireland, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018.
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Pope Francis, center, is flanked by Irish President Michael D. Higgins, left, and President's wife Sabina, upon his arrival at the Presidential residence in Dublin, Ireland, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2018.
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Pope Francis is greeted by a group of nuns during his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2018.
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Pope Francis delivers the Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world) blessing at the end of the Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, April 1, 2018.
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Pope Francis celebrates a Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, March 25, 2018.
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Pope Francis walks through the Plaza de Armas, in Trujillo, Peru, Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018. Francis consoled Peruvians who lost their homes and livelihoods in devastating floods last year, telling them Saturday they can overcome all of life's "storms" by coming together as a community and stamping out the violence that plagues this part of the country.
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A Peruvian Retablo is seen as Peru's President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski gifts it to Pope Francis during his visit at the Presidential palace in Lima, Peru, Jan. 19, 2018.
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Pope Francis marries flight attendants Carlos Ciuffardi, left, and Paola Podest, center, during a flight from Santiago to Iquique, Chile, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018. The pope celebrated the first-ever airborne papal wedding, marrying Ciuffardi and Podest from Chileu2019s flagship airline during the flight. The couple had been married through a civil ceremony in 2010, however, they said they couldnu2019t follow-up with a church ceremony because of the 2010 earthquake that hit Chile.
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Pope Francis waves to followers on his way to the Apostolic Nunciature in Santiago, Chile, Monday, Jan.15, 2018.
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Pope Francis kisses the Baby Jesus as he arrives at the St. Petru00ecs Basilica for the Christmas night Mass on Dec. 24, 2017, in Vatican City, Vatican.
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Pope Francis waves to the crowd from the window of the apostolic palace overlooking St. Peter's square during the Sunday Angelus prayer, on Dec. 24, 2017, in Vatican.
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Pope Francis blows a candle on the occasion of his 81st birthday during a private audience with children the Paul VI hall at the Vatican, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017.
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Pope Francis waves as he leaves Sant' Andrea Delle Fratte church following a private visit, in Rome, Dec. 8, 2017.
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Pope Francis prays in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary, near Rome's Spanish Steps, Dec. 8, 2017, an annual tradition marking the start of the city's holiday season.
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Pope Francis meets with Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017. While the Pope insisted that Myanmaru2019s future depends on respecting the rights of each ethnic group, an indirect show of support for Rohingya Muslims who have been subject to decades of discrimination, Pope Francis refrained from explicitly citing the crackdown. Also absent from his speech to Aung San Suu Kyi was the contested word "Rohingya.u201d
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Pope Francis is welcomed with flowers by children in traditional clothes upon his arrival at Yangon's airport, Myanmar, Monday, Nov. 27, 2017. The pontiff is in Myanmar for the first stage of a week-long visit that will also take him to neighboring Bangladesh.
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Pope Francis greets children in traditional clothes upon his arrival at Yangon's airport, Myanmar, Monday, Nov. 27, 2017. The pontiff is in Myanmar for the first stage of a week-long visit that will also take him to neighboring Bangladesh.
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Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos talks to Pope Francis during the pontiff's welcoming ceremony at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia, Sept. 6, 2017.
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Pope Francis delivers his speech at an international peace conference in Cairo, Egypt, April 28, 2017. Pope Francis is on a two-day pilgrimage to Egypt aimed at lifting the spirits of Christians in the Middle East, whose numbers have rapidly dwindled in recent decades due to war, displacement and emigration. Sitting at right, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the pre-eminent institute of Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim world, listens.
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Pope Francis walks past flowers as he celebrates the Easter Mass, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, April 16, 2017.
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Pope Francis celebrates a Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, April 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
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Pope Francis exchanges gifts with Britain's Prince Charles during a private audience at the Vatican, April 4, 2017. The heir to the British throne is on a three-country trip seen as an effort to reassure European Union nations that Britain remains a close ally despite its impending departure from the bloc.
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Pope Francis, right, flanked at right by Mons. Konrad Krajewski, celebrates his 80th birthday sharing a breakfast with homeless people before celebrating Mass with cardinals at the Vatican, Dec. 17, 2016. The Vatican said that the pope chatted early Saturday with each of the homeless guests u2014u00a0four Italians, two Romanians, one Moldovan, two Romanians and one Peruvianu2014u00a0and shared with them Argentinian cakes before heading to Mass.
Pope Francis waves to faithful as leaves at the end of a jubilee mass he celebrated in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016. Pope Francis has named 17 new cardinals - 13 of them under age 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave to elect his successor.
Pope Francis waves as he arrives in Accumoli on Oct. 4, 2016, after an earthquake hit the area on August 24, a disaster that claimed nearly 300 lives.
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Pope Francis is cheered by faithful as he arrives to the church of the Immaculate Conception in Baku, Azerbaijan, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2016.
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Pope Francis reads a speech during his meeting with Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Iliya II, center right, in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2016.
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Pope Francis is seen during Sunday Holy Mass on World Youth Day in Brzegi, Poland.
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Pope Francis poses for a selfie with youths after he had lunch with them at the Bishop's residence in Krakow, Poland, on July 30, 2016. The religious celebrations Saturday came on the fourth day of the popeu2019s five-day visit to Poland, his first ever visit to Eastern Europe, where he has been gathering with young Catholics attending World Youth Day, a global event.
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Pope Francis walks through the entrance of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz on July 29, 2016 in Oswiecim as part of his visit to the World Youth Days.
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Pope Francis stands at the International Monument to the Victims of Fascism at the former Nazi-German concentration and extermination camp KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau in Brzezinka, Poland, 29 July 2016.
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Pope Francis salutes the faithful and pilgrims on his way to the royal Wawel Castle in Krakow, Poland, Wednesday, July 27, 2016. Pope Francis is in Poland for an international Catholic youth festival with a mission to encourage openness to migrants.
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Pope Francis is helped onto his feet after falling on the stairs during a mass at the Jasna Gora Monastery in Czestochowa, Poland on July 28, 2016.
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Pope Francis, Polish President Andrzej Duda and his wife Agata Kornhauser-Duda visit the Wawel Royal Castle in Krakow, on July 27, 2016.
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Pope Francis greets a group of women during a Jubilee audience at St Peter's square on June 30, 2016, in Vatican.
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Pope Francis leaves at the end of the Holy Mass with the imposition of the Pallium upon the new Metropolitan Archbishops during the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, Vatican on June 29, 2016. The pallium, a woolen shawl symbolizing the bond beetween Metropolitan Archbishops and the Pope, is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Catholic Church.
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Pope Francis, left, and Catholicos Karekin II, right, walk together at the end of an open-air liturgy at the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral in Etchmiadzin, Yerevan, Armenia, Sunday, June 26, 2016. Pope Francis called Sunday for closer ties with Armenia's Orthodox church as he wrapped up his three-day visit with a liturgy and visit to the country's closed border with Turkey amid new tensions with Ankara over his recognition of the 1915 "genocide."
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Pope Francis visits the Apostolic Cathedral in Etchmiadzin, outside Yerevan, Armenia on June 24, 2016. He referred to the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians a century ago as a genocide for the first time, saying "sadly that tragedy, that genocide, was the first of the deplorable series of catastrophes of the past century, made possible by twisted racial, ideological or religious aims that darkened the minds of the tormentors even to the point of planning the annihilation of entire peoples."
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A view of people from a media bus decorated with a photo of Pope Francis during his meeting with workers at the Bachilleres College in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on Feb. 17, 2016.
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Pope Francis wears a traditional Mexican sombrero hat he received as a gift by a Mexican journalist aboard the plane during the flight from Rome to Habana, Cuba, on his way to a week-long trip to Mexico, Feb. 12, 2016. The pontiff is scheduled to stop in Cuba for an historical meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill.
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Pope Francis (L) and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill (R), approach to kiss during a historic meeting in Havana on February 12, 2016. It was the first meeting between their two branches of the church in nearly a thousand years.
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Pope Francis welcomes Zambia's President Edgar Lungu during a private audience at the Vatican, Feb. 5, 2016.
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In this photo taken on Monday, Sept. 21, 2015, children greet Pope Francis with flowers upon his arrival at Santiago de Cuba's airport, Cuba.
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Pope Francis is escorted by Barack and Michelle Obama after arriving September 22, 2015 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
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Pope Francis meets Kuwait Prime Minister Sheik Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah at the Apostolic Palace on September 10, 2015 in Vatican City, Vatican.
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Pope Francis waves as he arrives to recite the Angelus noon prayer from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sept. 6, 2015.
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Pope Francis caresses a child as he arrives for a meeting with faithful of the Holy Spirit movement in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Friday, July 3, 2015.
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Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, have an audience with Pope Francis, in the Pope's study during their one-day visit to Rome on April 3, 2014 in Vatican City, Vatican. During their brief visit The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will have lunch with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican. The Queen was originally due to travel to Rome in April 2013 but the visit was postponed due to her ill health. The audience with Pope Francis will be the fifth meeting The Queen, who is head of the Church of the England, has held with a Pope in the Vatican.
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Faithfuls stand on St Peter's square to watch the first mass by Pope Francis on a giant screen at the Vatican.
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The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, 76-year old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the son of an Italian railway worker.
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Newly elected Pope Francis appears on the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica on March 13, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the 266th Pontiff and will lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.
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White smoke rose above the Sistine Chapel Wednesday and bells rang out across Rome, signaling to world that the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church have chosen a new pope.
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This early 1950's picture released by journalist Sergio Rubin, shows Jorge Mario Bergoglio, right, posing with unidentified schoolmates of a preparatory school in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The report notes that Catholics’ own experiences may be influencing their attitudes toward families and sexuality. One in four Catholics has divorced, and one in 10 has also remarried. One in 10 is living with a partner and more than four in 10 have done so at some time.
As with other views on families, Catholics who say they attend Mass regularly, about four in 10, were more in agreement with church teachings than others. Many Catholics remain dedicated to their church and seven in 10 say they cannot imagine ever leaving it.
As for some of the beliefs Francis has focused on, six in 10 say working with the poor is essential to their Catholic identity. But only half as many say the same about working to address climate change, the report noted. Hispanic Catholics are more likely to be concerned about the morality of excessive consumption, the report found.
Among ex-Catholics, more than half have a positive view of Francis. And among all Catholics nine out of 10 view him positively, according to a Pew poll in February.
A different poll, done by Gallup in July, found that Francis' popularity in the United States had dropped dramatically, especially among Conservatives. Fifty-nine percent had a favorable view of the pope, down from 76 percent a year ago.
The 2015 Survey of U.S. Catholics and Family Life was conducted among 5,122 adults, among them 1,016 self-identified Catholics, from May 5 to June 7. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for Catholics and 1.6 percentage points for the full sample.
