THERE is a widening gulf
between Roman Catholics in Britain and the doctrine of their
Church, which is at its most stark over teaching about personal
morality, including contraception, assisted dying, and abortion,
new research suggests.
Surveys by YouGov for the
Westminster Faith Debates found that only 36 per cent of RCs viewed
the Church as a positive force in society. Their biggest
disagreements with Vatican teaching are over contraception and
family make-up.
Of those questioned, almost
90 per cent agreed that an unmarried couple with children
constitutes a family, and two-thirds that a same-sex couple with
children is a family. Only nine per cent said that they felt guilty
using contraception.
Only 19 per cent of those
polled supported a ban on abortion; 58 per cent supported assisted
dying; and 53 per cent were in favour of allowing same-sex
marriage.
The YouGov poll found this
week that despite the gulf between practice and teaching, Roman
Catholi-
cism remains relatively
strong in Britain, with up to ten per cent of the population
declaring themselves RC. Belief in God also remains high - 70 per
cent - compared with 62 per cent of Anglicans.
Three separate surveys were
carried out in January and June this year. Two are representative
of adults aged 18-plus in Great Britain, excluding Northern
Ireland, and each was completed by more than 4000 people, including
350 RCs in the first, and 260 in the second. The third was
completed by a nationally representative sample of 1062 RCs.
The director of the
Westminster Faith Debates, Professor Linda Woodhead, said: "What
these findings show is a widening gulf between what the Vatican
thinks a Catholic should be, and what Catholics in Britain really
are. . . There is now a major divide in British Catholicism between
a minority who obey their leaders, and a majority who do not."
To prepare for an
extraordinary synod on the family, to be held next year, the
Vatican has released a questionnaire on issues such as divorce,
same-sex couples, and cohabitation. The secretary-general of the
Synod of Bishops, Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, said that parish
priests would "pass on their local information based on the reality
of that parish and its parishioners". Each Bishops' Conference
around the world is collecting responses in its own way. The
Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has posted the
survey on its website.
Paul
Vallely