Starting new life demands a certain virility.
The Washington Post is reporting a Pew survey which reveals stark information that will immediately fall into a memory sieve. The so-called ‘catholic’ population of the United States (and the world for that matter) is comprised almost entirely of apostates and protestants. That vast majority of these people are both:
- Almost completely un-formed
- Brilliantly and ruthlessly mal-formed
They most certainly are not Catholic and should not be considered so.
Most Americans who were raised Catholic but have since left the church could not envision themselves returning to it, according to a new Pew Research Center survey examining American Catholics and family life. The survey’s findings were released Wednesday, weeks before Pope Francis makes his first visit to the United States, and as Catholic leadership contends with dramatic demographic shifts.
Seventy-seven percent of those who were raised Catholic but no longer identify with the religion said they could not envision themselves eventually returning to the church, according to the Pew survey. The survey also examined U.S. Catholics’ views on issues such as divorce, same-sex marriage and sinful behavior, finding an openness for non-traditional family structures.
This is unsurprising. Outside the Faith everybody thinks the same. On the other side of Heaven is only the reign of Hell. It also has its ‘doctrines.’ Life has only two rooms really.
Although Catholics have long made up about a quarter of the U.S. population, recent data has shown that percentage dropping. In 2007, 23.9 percent of Americans identified as Catholic. In 2014, 20.8 percent of Americans said the same, according to previous survey results from Pew.
But the new survey illustrates something else about Catholic life in the United States: while the percentage of Americans who may identify their religion as Catholicism is dropping, a much larger group of Americans identify as Catholic in some way.
In all, 45 percent of Americans say they are either Catholic, or are connected to Catholicism. That larger percentage includes “Cultural Catholics” (making up nine percent of those surveyed) who are not practicing Catholics but who identify with the religion in some way; and “ex-Catholics” (also nine percent) who were formerly Catholic but no longer identify with Catholicism at all. And another eight percent said they had some other connection to Catholicism, for instance by having a Catholic partner or spouse. For the purposes of the survey, Pew kept each category mutually exclusive.
According to the survey, about half of those who were raised Catholic end up leaving at some point, while about 11 percent of those who left have since returned.
That means half of them don’t leave. I wonder how old most of those people are.
The study also sheds some light on how Catholic American attitudes on family, sex, and marriage compare with church teaching. When asked whether they believed the church should change its position on a variety of issues, a very large percentage of religiously identified Catholics — 76 percent — expressed a desire to see the church allow the use of birth control. Sixty-two percent felt that the church should allow priests to marry, and about the same percentage thought that the church should allow divorced and cohabitation couples to receive communion.
These beliefs are easy to instill. All you have to do is reject the sacraments and turn on the TV.
Fifty-nine percent of Catholics surveyed thought women should be allowed to become priests. Meanwhile, just 46 percent of Catholics believe the church should recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples.
Among those Catholics who attend Mass weekly, support for these changes was lower overall. But Pew notes that even among this particular population, two-thirds of Mass-going Catholics think the church should relax its prohibition on contraceptives.
Heretics. The vast majority of ‘catholics’ don’t even approach a Church. The vast majority of those that do, still reject her teachings. This would be strikingly clear to the world if only the bishops weren’t even worse themselves.
These people don’t need ‘mercy.’ They need the book thrown at them so they know where they stand. The Pope and hierarchy are unable to do so today, but until clear lines are drawn around the Church militant, she will never be visible, and the world continue to spiral like a fireball.
