----- Original Message ----- From: "Reggie Bautista" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 8:47 PM Subject: Re: Bishops to punish catholic politicians who disobey Pope
> I wrote: > > > There is a war going on > > > right now within the Roman Catholic Church between those who think > > > the reforms of Vatican II went too far or maybe even should be > > > completely repealed and those who think that the reforms didn't go > > > far enough. > > Dan replied: > >That description is probably true if you are describing bishops, but not > >if you are describing average Catholics. If you look at surveys of > >Catholics on issues such as married priests, women priests, birth control, > >etc. you will find that most Catholics in the US dissent from the teachings > >of the church. Only 30% agree with the churches policy on married priests, > >67% disagree; woman priests: 32% vs 64%; birth control 12% vs 88%. > > > >So, the vast majority of American Catholics want the reforms to go farther. > >From: > > > >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/vault/stories/data1015 03.html > > > >The balance only exists in the hierarchy. > > >From my personal experience, that sounds accurate. However, I don't think > that would hold true of Catholics in European countries. I don't have any > numbers to back this up, only anecdotes, but it seems to me that American Catholics > tend to be much more liberal as a group than European Catholics, which I find to be > a fascinating reversal of the typical stereotype of Europeans as liberal and > Americans as conservative outside of the Church. It might be that the relatively few in Europe that go to church are more conservative. My experience is that church attendance is not part of the woof and warf of life, as it is in the US. For example, a former pastor of mine talked about seeing mainly old ladies and children in the churches in Italy. That may be a bit of an overstatement, but from what I've seen European church attendance is less than half of what US church attendance is. As for South America, my uncle talked a lot about the relatively low attendance at his parish. I'm guessing slightly more than 1% went to church. "Muy Catolico, pero no fanatico." Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
