One tough challenge that Catholic shepherds face, Pope Benedict XVI said this past Lent, is that their flocks live in an age \u201cin which the loss of the sense of sin is unfortunately becoming increasingly more widespread.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The pope has consistently described the forces at work as \u201cpluralism,\u201d \u201crelativism\u201d and \u201csecularism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhere God is excluded from the public forum the sense of offence against God \u2014 the true sense of sin \u2014 dissipates, just as when the absolute value of moral norms is relativized the categories of good or evil vanish, along with individual responsibility,\u201d he told a group of Canadian bishops, early in his papacy.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYet the human need to acknowledge and confront sin in fact never goes away. \u2026 As St. John tells us: \u2018If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n
But there\u2019s a problem at pew level. Many American Catholics who regularly attend Mass simply do not agree with their church when it comes time to say what is sinful and what is not. In fact, according to a recent survey by Ellison Research in Phoenix, if the pope wanted to find large numbers of believers who share his views on sin he should spend more time with evangelical Protestants.<\/p>\n\n
For example, 100 percent of evangelicals polled said adultery is sinful, while 82 percent of the active Catholics agreed. On other issues, 96 percent of evangelicals said racism is sin, compared to 79 percent of Catholics. Sex before marriage? That\u2019s sin, said 92 percent of the evangelicals, while only 47 percent of Catholics agreed.<\/p>\n\n
On one of the hottest of hot-button issues, 94 percent of evangelicals said it\u2019s sinful to have an abortion, compared with 74 percent of American Catholics. And what about homosexual acts? Among evangelicals, 93 percent called this sin, as opposed to 49 percent of the Catholics.<\/p>\n\n
The Catholics turned the tables when asked if it\u2019s sinful not to attend \u201creligious worship services on a regular basis,\u201d with 39 percent saying this is sin, compared to 33 percent of the evangelicals.<\/p>\n\n
In this survey, a Catholic was defined as \u201csomeone who attends Mass at a Catholic parish at least once a month or more,\u201d said Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research. The goal was to focus on the beliefs of active members, as opposed to ex-Catholics and \u201ccultural Catholics\u201d who rarely, or never, go to Mass.<\/p>\n\n
The researchers also collected data on church-attending Protestants and this group \u2014 mixing mainline Protestants and those in conservative churches \u2014 tended to give answers that were more conservative than those from by Catholics, but more liberal than those given by evangelicals. Sellers said his team sifted evangelicals out of the larger Protestant pool by asking participants to affirm or question basic doctrinal statements, such as, \u201cThe Bible is the written word of God and is totally accurate in all that it teaches\u201d and \u201cEternal salvation is possible through God\u2019s grace alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The split between Catholics and evangelicals jumped out of the statistics.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to talk about what could have caused this without doing in-depth research that would let us move beyond speculation,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you can\u2019t look at these numbers without asking: Why are American evangelicals more likely to have a Catholic approach to sin than American Catholics?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s clear that most Americans are operating with definitions of sin that are highly personal and constantly evolving, said Sellers. These beliefs are linked to faith, morality, worship and the Bible, but are also affected by trends in media, education and politics. For example, 94 percent of political conservatives believe there is such a thing as sin, compared to 89 percent of political moderates and 77 percent of liberals.<\/p>\n\n
The declining numbers on certain sins would have been even more striking if the Ellison researchers hadn\u2019t added a strategic word to its survey. The study defined \u201csin\u201d as \u201csomething that is almost always considered wrong, particularly from a religious or moral perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Note that linguistic cushion \u2014 \u201calmost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe had to put that \u2018almost\u2019 in there,\u201d said Sellers. \u201cMost Americans do not believe in absolute truths, these days. So if you present them with a statement that contains an absolute truth, people are immediately going to start challenging you and looking for some wiggle room. \u2026 They just can\u2019t deal with absolute statements and that messes up your survey.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One tough challenge that Catholic shepherds face, Pope Benedict XVI said this past Lent, is that their flocks live in an age \u201cin which the loss of the sense of sin is unfortunately becoming increasingly more widespread.\u201d The pope has consistently described the forces at work as \u201cpluralism,\u201d \u201crelativism\u201d and \u201csecularism.\u201d \u201cWhere God is excluded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,111,1532,260,1534,663,802],"class_list":["post-1492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adultery","tag-benedict-xvi","tag-catholics","tag-confession","tag-evangelicals","tag-polling","tag-sin"],"yoast_head":"\n