Vatican Disconnect - disparity between Catholics and their leaders - Brief Article

Humanist, Nov, 2000 by Edd Doerr

Shifting gears, I have written in various places about the significant disconnect between the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church and the views of most ordinary Catholics. By most indices, since 1965 there has been an implosion in the Catholic church in the United States. Weekly church attendance is down to below 30 percent, tithing a percentage of income has dropped by half, parochial school enrollment has slid from half of all Catholic kids to under 20 percent, and varying majorities of Catholics disagree with official hierarchy positions on divorce, contraception, abortion rights, ordaining women, and allowing priests to marry.

Furthermore, Catholic voters preferred Clinton over Bush by 44 percent to 36 percent in 1992 and over Dole in 1996 by 56 percent to 37 percent, with Clinton picking up twenty-four of the twenty-five most heavily Catholic metro areas and the twelve most heavily Catholic states, despite Clinton's and the Democrats' pro-choice and anti-voucher stances. And the National Catholic Reporter showed in August that Democrats in Congress support traditional Catholic social justice positions (similar to humanist and Unitarian Universalist positions) more often than Republicans.

What I am leading up to is a strong recommendation that readers access the excellent publications of Catholics for a Free Choice (www.catholicsfor choice.org). CFFC is the lead sponsor of the "See Change" campaign to convince the United Nations to revoke the favored status uniquely granted to the Holy See, the governing body of the Roman Catholic church. See Change is supported by the American Humanist Association and over 500 other U.S. and foreign groups.

I recommend CFFC's latest publications, The Holy See and Women's Rights: A Shadow Report on the Beijing Platform for Action and Catholic HMOs and Reproductive Health Care.

Edd Doerr is president of the American Humanist Association and executive director of Americans for Religious Liberty.