|
American
religion, it is alleged, is split by culture wars between "fundamentalists" and
"liberals." The former, it is said, oppose religious change and the latter
support religious change. Much of the culture war phenomenon occupies elites and rarely
occasions involvement of denomination membership. Catholicism has its own internal culture
wars between those who support change in the Church and those who oppose it. The purpose
of this brief report is to investigate how the culture wars affect Catholic membership in
a particularly sensitive situation - the interregnum between the death of a popular
archbishop and the appointment of a new one in Chicago. |
_
Keep
in touch...
Locally, and Globally!
Check out
Andrew M.
Greeley's Columns for the
Chicago SunTimes'
Daily Southtown.
_ |
 |
.The
issue is whether the Catholic membership wants a man in the image of his predecessor or
someone who would more vigorously enforce what are taken to be important Catholic values. Those who insist on the importance of the traditional
values emphasize institutional authority. For them Catholicism for all practical purposes
is authority. In this paper they are called FUNDAMENTALISTS because for them church
authority plays a role not unlike the bible plays for fundamentalist Protestants. Those
who want a continuation of the more moderate policies of the late Cardinal would argue
that Catholicism has never been a rigidly exclusionist tradition. They are therefore
called PLURALISTS. To explore the relative sizes of these two elements of the Catholic
population, a survey was conducted of a representative sample of Catholics in Cook and
Lake County (by random digit phone dialing). There were 501 respondents in the survey and
the margin of error is plus or minus four percentage point. The questions were forced
choices between positions which separate the fundamentalists from the pluralists. Thus the
FUNDAMENTALISTS believe that to be true to Catholic authority a new Archbishop must
"crack down" on those who advocate the ordination of women, on those who
practice birth control, on priests who engage in absolution services at Christmas and
Easter, and on politics who do not fight against abortion. The PLURALISTS would rather
have an archbishop who is more tolerant on these matters. It is worth nothing that this
toleration might not necessarily indicate infidelity to doctrine, but a prudential
judgment about what is most likely to effective in a given set of circumstances.
Moreover the PLURALIST would want to see dialogue expanded in the Church, with Protestants
and Jews, with women in the Church, and with various factions in the church, even those
who disagree with the Pope in certain matters (a goal which seems similar to that of the
late Cardinal's "Common Ground" project).
Questions were also asked about the financial skills of a new Archbishop and his personal
holiness and sensitivity.
One does not try to determine religious truth by taking surveys. One can, however, report
what members of denominations deem to be the appropriate prudential reaction of their
leaders to controversial situations in which they might find themselves. The wordings of
the questions in this project were deliberately chosen to reflect the latter rather than
the former issues.
FINDINGS
Table 1 and Figure 1 indicate that Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago are
overwhelmingly supportive of PLURALISM. (The figures in the parentheses are the
proportions who choose for the PLURALISTIC side of the forced choice on each item).
The strongest support (92%) is for a position like that of the late Cardinal's
"Common Ground" - "Work to bring together different factions in the
Catholic Church" even if these disagree with what the Pope says. More than eight out
of ten support expansion of dialogue with Protestants, expansion of the role of women in
the Church, continuation of the holiday absolution service, and toleration for the laity
who practice birth control. Three quarters defend the freedom of priests and laity and
advocate toleration for those who support the ordination of women. Finally 64% oppose a
crack-down on politicians who do not fight against abortion. To report the same finding
from the other perspective, 36% support the FUNDAMENTALIST position on politicians and
abortion, 25% want stricter discipline for the laity and the clergy and a crack down on
those who advocate the ordination of women, and twenty percent or less endorse hard line
positions on the other issues.
The magnitude of the PLURALISTIC response can be judged from the fact that a third of the
respondents endorsed all the PLURALISTIC positions (and thus rejected all the
fundamentalist positions) and 60% endorsed at least seven out of eight of the pluralistic
answers. On the other hand. Only two tenths of one percent of the respondents embraced all
the FUNDAMENTALIST answers and only four tenths of one percent endorsed at least seven out
of eight FUNDAMENTALISTS answers. An ideologically consistent FUNDAMENTALISM hardly exists
at all in the Archdiocese of Chicago.
It is worth nothing that these answers are congruent with other surveys of American
Catholics which have focused on differently worded questions in contexts other than the
selection of a new Archbishop. Thus opposition to birth control is generally in the low
teen percentages just as it is in this project.
73% of all respondents think that is important that the next Archbishop be an able
financial administrator while 93% want a holy and sensitive person. There are no
differences between the FUNDAMENTALISTS and the PLURALISTS on these matters.
If one takes as an appropriate measure, the proportion of respondents who endorse at least
seven of the PLURALISTIC answers, one can compare the various demographic groups in the
study (Table 2).
The strongest support for PLURALISM is to be found among women, those between thirty and
sixty, whites, the Irish, suburbanites, those who graduated from college and those who go
to Mass less than weekly. The two graphs show that women are more likely to be pluralists
at every level of education (figure 2) and that the differences between them and men
increase with educational attainment, so that three out of four women with college
education endorse at least seven of the eight pluralistic responses. Moreover, the
differences between women and men (Figure 3) are especially strong among those who do not
attend church often.
Catholics under thirty are significantly less likely than those between thirty and sixty
to want a bishop who will tolerate absolutions services (75% versus 83 %), a bishop who
will try to bring all factions together (88% versus 96%), and a bishop who will expand
ecumenism (74% versus 86%). Perhaps the youngest age cohort is more conservative
religiously as well as politically. Or perhaps some of the more pluralistic young
Catholics do not at present identify with the Church.
Respondents were also asked which of the issues raised in the questions was most important
to them. Forty percent of the respondents emphasized behavior in a bishop which
characterized the late Cardinal (Table 3). !1% mentioned including all factions in
Catholic dialogue, 11% the expansion of ecumenism, 9% the expansion of women's role, and
9% a holy and sensitive man. 7% and 6% percent respectively said that toleration for those
who practice birth control and those who advocate women priests was the most important.
17% said abortion was the most important issue, of whom 9% advocated a crack down on
politicians who did not fight against it and 8% toleration for such politicians.
It may be argued that the Church leadership should pay no attention to these findings
because the laity have no right to participate in the selection of their own bishop. It is
unlikely that the present leadership of the Church will consider these findings for more
than a few moments, save perhaps to argue from them that Chicago is more of a mess than
they thought it was and that therefore an especially stern and authoritative Archbishop
should be sent to Chicago. How such a man would impose his authority is an issue which is
beyond the scope of this paper.
Moreover, for the first thousand years of Catholic history laity did participate in the
selection of their bishops (most notably in the election of St. Ambrose as bishop of
Milano) and Popes (such as St. Leo and St. Gregory) insisted that all other methods of
selection were sinful. In those days no one believed that Rome knew the needs of a diocese
better than did the local clergy and laity.
Fundamentalist Catholics are well-organized, active, and articulate in Chicago and
elsewhere. They are influential in the Vatican because it is believed that they represent
large numbers of lay people. If Catholic leadership persuades itself that large numbers of
Chicago Catholics want or will accept more authority and especially more authoritarian
rule, that leadership will have misread the situation in the city completely. An
Archbishop who is dramatically different from the late Cardinal and who tries to impose
stricter authority on Chicago Catholics is not likely to be effective.
Table 1
Questions for survey about
Next archbishop
In the next few months the Pope will appoint a new Archbishop of Chicago to replace the
late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. If you had to choose, would you like to see the successor
to cardinal Bernardin be someone who would
a) Tolerate or crack down on those who advocate the ordination of women as priests. (75%)
b) Tolerate or crack down on priests who have absolution services in their parishes at
Christmas or Easter. (80%
c) Tolerate or condemn the laity who practice birth control (86%)
d) Tolerate or condemn politicians who do not fight against abortion. (64%)
e) Work to bring together different factions in the Catholic Church or exclude those who
disagree with what the Pope says. (92%)
f) Expand cooperation with Protestants and Jews or maintain or cut back cooperation with
them. (84%)
g) Work to expand the role of women in the Church or be less concerned about changing the
role of women. (83%)
h) Be a skill financial administrator or someone who is less interested or experience in
that area.
i) Be an especially Holy and sensitive individual or not.
j) Respect the freedom or impose strict discipline on the clergy and laity.
(75%)
Table 2
Proportion Pluralist by Demographic Groups
% who chose seven or eight pluralistic responses
Age
Less than 30 56%
30 to 39 66%
40 to 49 71%
50 to 59 67%
60 to 69 51%
70 or over 43%
Gender
Women 64%
Men 58%
Race
White 62%
Black 59%
Hispanic 55%
Ethnic Group
Irish 73%
Polish 51%
Italian 62%
German 61%
Region
Chicago 58%
Suburban Cook 63%
Lake 64%
Education
High School or less 56%
Some College 61%
College Grad or More 68%
Church Attendance
Weekly 49%
Almost Weekly 65%
Monthly 63%
Several times a year 68%
Yearly 71%
Never 60%
Table 3
Most important Issues in Selecting New Archbishop
All factions 11%
Expand Ecumenism 11%
Expand Women's Role 9%
Holy and Sensitive man 9%
Abortion (crack down on pols) 9%
Abortion (tolerate pols) 8%
Birth Control (tolerate) 7%
Women Priests (tolerate) 6%
|
