Pope Francis' papacy
softening hearts of America's 'Modernist Catholics'
By Kevin Truong
A new poll suggests that a substantial portion of Americans who have left the Catholic Church but still feel connected to it could be swayed by Pope Francis.
For Darcy Fargo, the
conservative political teachings of the faith were the hardest thing to
overcome when she returned to Catholicism a few months ago.
Mrs. Fargo had grown up
Catholic, but in college found herself moving away from the church, so much so
that for years she was a staunch, “militant” atheist, who would sometimes
deride other for their religious beliefs. It wasn’t until a friend challenged her
to be open-minded about faith that she started to delve back into it.
A chance meeting with a
priest led to the New York resident's first religious experience for more than
a decade.
I just got the sense of
awe, happiness, and something greater that I had lost in the 10 to 12 years I
left the church,” she says.
A new poll from the Pew
Research Center shows that Fargo’s experience is relatively rare among
Catholics, but it also suggests that the papacy of Pope Francis could begin to
change that.
Seventy-seven percent of
respondents who considered themselves ex-Catholics said they couldn't imagine
themselves going back to the Roman Catholic Church.
But the poll also found
that as many as 9 percent of Americans are “cultural Catholics,” people who do
not consider themselves religiously Catholic, but culturally Catholic or
partially Catholic in other ways.
And nearly half of them –
43 percent – were open to possibly rejoining the church, the data showed.
Significantly, the
more-liberal leanings of the new pope neatly embrace the worldview of cultural
Catholics. And beyond cultural Catholics, the poll showed that practicing
American Catholics, too, were surprisingly open to nontraditional family
structures, sexuality, and contraception.
Some 66 percent of Catholics,
for example, said that it was acceptable for children to be raised by a gay or
lesbian couple, according to the poll.
The pope's effort to appeal
to the moderate views of a broad base of Catholics, instead of appeasing
hyperconservatives in the church leadership, is at the core of what has made
him attractive to many American Catholics, says Bruce Morrill, a Catholic
studies professor at Vanderbilt University and a Jesuit priest.
“Pope Francis has proven to
be a populist, not in the political sense, but in the fact that’s he’s trying
to find a middle way, he’s trying to connect with the population at the base,
not at the extremes,” Professor Morrill says.
According to the study, a
majority of American Catholics do not find it sinful to use contraception or
cohabit with a romantic partner outside of marriage, especially if they have a
child to care for. Their thoughts on same-sex marriage are evenly split, with
46 percent on both sides of whether the Catholic Church “should recognize the
marriages of gay and lesbian couples.”
And while the majority of
Catholics do believe that abortion is sinful, that belief ranks low when
respondents were asked what was "essential" to being a Catholic,
behind things like “having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and
“working to help the poor and needy.”
Fargo says she still has
trouble reconciling her own moral code with official church doctrine,
particularly in the case of same-sex marriage and contraception, which she and
her husband used after having their first child, who was diagnosed with a form
of autism.
“My best friend happens to
be gay, and I had a hard time seeing how their relationship is any more or less
valued than the relationship I had with my husband,” she says, adding: “My son
is the love of my life, and I would do anything for him, but having another
child who is special-needs might be too much for me to handle.”
At least for now, she lies
somewhere in the middle of traditional church teachings and her own beliefs, a
place she says she feels most American Catholics are in.
“Oftentimes it’s an
either-or world we live in,” Fargo says. “But I don’t believe our God is like
that, and I don’t believe our faith is like that.”
The increased focus on
charity and mercy during the papacy of Pope Francis has boosted the popularity
of the Catholic leader across America and the globe – both inside and out of
the Catholic community. Currently favorability ratings of Pope Francis sit at
66 percent.
“I think Pope Francis is
better at stressing forgiveness,” Fargo said. “And softening the perception of
an all-or-nothing attitude towards Catholicism.”
Erin Donnelly remembers
starting to turn away from the Catholic Church because this attitude. On the
first day of her Catholic high school’s religion class, the teacher talked
about the horrifying nature of abortion. Same thing happened on the second day.
And the third.
Noticing a pattern, Ms.
Donnelly took out her notebook and made a tally mark for every class where the
teacher negatively mentioned abortion.
She had a mark for every
single day until the end of the school year.
Donnelly was born into a
Catholic family and went through a religious education. By middle school she
says she was “really Catholic.”
That changed at Catholic
school, where she was hit hard with ideas about abortion, sexuality, and
contraception that seemed overly harsh and out-of-touch with her experience.
“In high school when they
pushed these really conservative things on you, that really turned me off,” she
says. “It dwelled on these minuscule political points that moved away from the
main point of the religion, which is to help your neighbor, be kind, and
believe in God.”
While she doesn’t practice
regularly anymore, Donnelly says that “being Catholic is a part of who I am as
a person and a part of my family history.”
In that way, Donnelly fits
neatly into Pew's cultural Catholic demographic. What was perhaps most
surprising about the poll, says Pew Research Center associate director of
research Gregory Smith, was the finding that about 45 percent of the American
population have had some relationship with Catholicism.
Since assuming the papacy
two years ago, Francis has shown a renewed focus on social justice and mercy,
putting him in line with the more-liberalized strain of American Catholicism
found in the poll.
In 2013, he gave his famous
“who am I to judge” statement when confronted with a question on how he would
deal with a homosexual cleric. Last month, the pope reiterated his idea that
the church should be open to Catholics who have divorced and remarried, saying
there were "no closed doors" for them.
And on Tuesday, he met the
divisive issue of abortion with a message of compassion, using his authority to
allow all Catholic priests around the world to offer reconciliation to women
who have terminated their pregnancies.
“I think Francis’ take on
the church will appeal to Roman Catholics and even young Catholics because it
appeals to the best desires in life,” Morrill said.
Even so, Morrill cautioned
against tying the popularity of the pope with an ability to bring people back
into the church; former Catholics have left the church for many reasons.
But Donnelly says that Pope
Francis is doing the right things to bring former Catholics back.
“Especially when you grow
up in the church, having a progressive leader makes being curious about your
faith a much less scary proposition,” Donnelly says.
Donnelly, who works as a
newspaper reporter, recently found herself on assignment in a Catholic Church
not on Dec. 25 for the first time in years, with a new open attitude toward her
faith.
“I found value in going to
mass and taking communion,” she says thinking back.
“I felt that sense of
community.”
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