By Fred Jackson and Allie Martin
June 4, 2002
(AgapePress) - A new poll indicates the vast majority of Roman Catholics in the U.S. are not happy with the way church officials are handling the ongoing sex-abuse scandal.
A new USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll indicates 77% of Catholics believe any priest found guilty of abusing a young person in the past should be removed from the priesthood. The percentage moved to 82% for new cases. In addition, 75% of the Catholics polled say their church has done a poor job of dealing with abusive priests.
Almost nine out of ten Catholics -- 87% -- say the Pope should remove a cardinal or bishop who knew that a priest had been sexually abusing young people and responded by simply transferring that priest to another parish without reporting him to the civil authorities.
The poll comes as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops prepares to meet next week to try to come up with a new nationwide policy on abuse.
While some in the church advocate a zero-tolerance approach, USA Today
reports some Vatican experts still believe bishops should retain the power
to deal with abusive priests themselves rather than turning them over to
authorities.Reflecting on Faith
Another new survey shows that millions of
Catholic adults are struggling to clarify their feelings, beliefs, and
commitments in the wake of the sex scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church.
The survey by the Barna Research Group shows that since January, there has been
a big drop -- from 41% to just 30% -- among Catholics who say they are
absolutely committed to Christianity.
But as Dave Kinnamon, a vice president with Barna, says, the survey also shows that most other indicators have remained relatively stable since the scandal broke.
"There are a whole lot of other factors that we looked at that actually have not changed," he explains, "such as their self-identification with the Catholic Church, the importance of their religious faith, Bible reading, prayer, church volunteerism, small-group involvement, their commitment to Jesus Christ. There's some other things that by and large remain the same."
"So on the whole, Catholics are the same in terms of their faith commitments as they were a year ago or just six months ago."
Kinnamon adds that three groups have been hit especially hard by the scandal: women, 'baby boomers' -- people between the ages of 36 and 54 -- and parents of young children. "Each of those groups seems to have had a greater drop in their level of commitment to Christianity than was the case with any of the other Catholic groups that we measured," he says.
Kinnamon believes many Catholics are waiting to see how church leaders will handle the crisis before making any drastic decisions. One-fourth of all American adults identify themselves as Catholic.
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