What do people believe about the Catholic faith?

It's been over a week since I posted the survey seeking to find out what people believe about the Catholic faith. There have been 56 persons who have taken the survey. The results were very interesting and I thought I'd share a few of them with you. Hopefully, my math is correct. I am quite good with percentages and numbers but when they become percentages of percentages I am only so-so. If you see a mistake let me know. I will point out that percentages on the survey page scome out as parts of persons when applied to the number of respondants so I rounded to the nearest whole number.

Of the 56 persons who took the survey, 51 (91%) were Catholic, 4 (7%) were Protestant and 1 (2%) said they were of another faith. I would say that the results then would, for the most part, reflect the Catholic beliefs of their own faith. 94% or 53 of the persons who responded stated that they regularly practice their faith. There were 50 persons who stated that they were Catholic when asked how often they attend Mass. However, only 80% or 40 of these people go to Mass weekly or daily (67% go weekly, 13% go daily). I find it very interesting that, although nearly 95% consider themselves practicing their Catholic faith, 15% of those persons don't actually attend Mass regularly. According to a CARA study, only 23% of Catholics say they go to Mass weekly or more so our numbers are significantly greater. However, I would expect this since you are regular readers of a blog written by a Catholic priest.

An interesting correlation was that 80% of Catholic respondants believed that the Eucharist truly is the Body and Blood of Christ. I would confidently say that participation in the faith, specifically participation in the Mass, directly affects your belief in the core of our Catholic faith.

The question of confession was one that really interested me. When asked how often you went to confession, over 50% said they went once a year or less. There were 23% (12 persons) who went once a year and 33% (17 persons) who went less than once a year. It seems that regular use of the sacrament of confession has been an issue for quite awhile now. Regular attendance would be a every three months or more. The survey indicated that 36% or 18 persons who would be considered using the sacrament regularly. The CARA study showed that 14% of Catholics use the sacrament regularly.

The question of the use of contraception may have been confusing. It was pointed out to me that the question did not differentiate between natural family planning methods or artificial contraception. My intent was referring to artificial contraception as I do not consider natural family planning to be contraception. However, since I did not clarify it then the results might be skewed so I am not going to break down the statistics.

The question of abortion was somewhat disturbing. 21% or 12 persons believe that abortion was acceptable in certain circumstances. That is 1/5 of the respondants. Considering that only 5 of the respondants were non-Catholic that leaves at least 7 Catholics who believe that abortion should be allowed in certain circumstances. Most of my readers know that the Catholic Church teaches that abortion is intrinsically evil and NEVER justified. At least 14% of Catholic respondants believing that is should be allowed in certain circumstances is very disturbing to me.

I am going to review the final 5 questions in my next blog entry. These last 5 are very much mixed with the teaching of the Church. Until next time...God bless.

posted by: crossman at 09:41 | link | comments |
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