{"id":294601,"date":"2019-01-11T16:26:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T21:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=294601"},"modified":"2019-01-11T16:26:43","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T21:26:43","slug":"gallup-catholics-losing-faith-in-clergy-and-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/01\/gallup-catholics-losing-faith-in-clergy-and-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Gallup: Catholics losing faith in clergy and church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Via CNN:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

American Catholics\u2019 faith in the church and clergy has fallen sharply in the last year, according to a new Gallup survey, as the church struggles to regain credibility amid a damning sexual abuse scandal.<\/p>\n

In 2017, nearly half of Catholics in the US (49%) told pollsters they had a \u201chigh\u201d or \u201cvery high\u201d opinion of the honesty and ethical standards of clergy members. In December of 2018, at the end of the church\u2019s \u201cyear from hell,\u201d that number had dropped to 31%.<\/p>\n

\u2026All Americans\u2019 trust in clergy \u2014 Catholic and otherwise \u2014 has been falling since 2012, Gallup says. Overall, though, Protestants are more likely to have positive views of the clergy and their church. Nearly half (48%) have \u201chigh\u201d or \u201cvery high\u201d views of clergy members\u2019 honesty and ethical standards, and nearly an identical number profess faith in \u201cthe church\/organized religion\u201d in general.<\/p>\n

Despite the decline in trust of their church and its clergy, American Catholics\u2019 percentage of the population has been holding steady at about 22%, Gallup found, while identification with Protestant traditions has \u201cdropped precipitously\u201d in the last decade.<\/p>\n

Much of the church\u2019s stability can be traced to Latino immigration, Gallup says. Three in 10 American Catholics are now Latino, who make up 15% of the American population at large.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

From Gallup:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest drop in Catholics\u2019 positive views of the clergy\u2019s ethics, from 49% to 31%, is the second double-digit drop since 2004. Both declines were clearly associated with scandals in the Catholic Church even though the question about clergy does not specify a denomination.<\/p>\n

Between 2004 and 2014, a majority of Catholics rated the clergy\u2019s ethics highly, but opinions fell sharply between 2014 and 2015. That 13-point drop from 57% to 44% followed the release of a study by the Catholic Church that found more than 4,000 priests had faced sexual abuse accusations in the prior 50 years.<\/p>\n

Although Protestants\u2019 ratings of the clergy have dropped since 2004, the decline has not been as sharp, and the latest 48% positive rating of the clergy is much higher than Catholics\u2019. Still, it is the first reading that falls below the majority level among Protestants.<\/p>\n

Catholics\u2019 confidence in the church\/organized religion, as measured by Gallup\u2019s annual\u00a0Confidence in Institutions poll<\/a>\u00a0in June, was in decline even before the latest sexual abuse allegations in Pennsylvania came to light. Catholics\u2019 confidence dropped from 52% in June 2017 to 44% in June 2018.<\/p>\n

Another bellwether for the possible future of the U.S. Catholic Church is the continued decline in church attendance. Weekly church attendance has declined among all Americans, including U.S. Catholics, in the past decade. Yet, it has remained relatively steady among Protestants.<\/p>\n

A previous Gallup analysis showed that between 2014 and 2017, an average\u00a039% of Catholics reported attending church in the last week<\/a>. That was down from an average of 45% between 2005 and 2008 and from 75% in 1955. The same data showed that for the first time, in the 2014 to 2017 period, no age group reported majority-level weekly Mass attendance. In 2018, an average of 36% of Catholics reported attending church in the past seven days.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there is this conclusion:<\/p>\n

Despite the turmoil, the percentage of Americans who self-identify as Catholic has been stable and a slim majority of Catholics still consider religion to be very important in their lives. That only one-third of Catholics who consider religion very important to them rate the clergy\u2019s ethical standards highly seems to show that they are able to separate the institution from their own personal faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Via CNN: American Catholics\u2019 faith in the church and clergy has fallen sharply in the last year, according to a new Gallup survey, as the church struggles to regain credibility amid a damning sexual abuse scandal. In 2017, nearly half of Catholics in the US (49%) told pollsters they had a \u201chigh\u201d or \u201cvery high\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":45417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-people-in-the-pews"],"yoast_head":"\nGallup: Catholics losing faith in clergy and church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Via CNN: American Catholics' faith in the church and clergy has fallen sharply in the last year, according to a new Gallup survey, as the church struggles\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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