Interesting news from recent CBS/New York Times survey results: The pope's favoribility numbers are improving since a March survey, and Catholics by and large are still giving to their parishes. In other words the sex abuse scandals in Ireland and other parts of Europe have not done too much damage here–though Catholics by and large do not think the Vatican has handled these cases well. Still, despite advances in child protection in recent years, significant numbers of Catholics still think sex abuse among priests is still a problem. David Gibson at Politics Daily has interesting commentary on the results.
I can't say I find this terribly surprising. The U.S. cases that came to light beginnning in 2002 probably drove out most who were going to leave; those that stayed anyway were likely not going to leave now. Plus, Catholics have a lot of loyalty to their own parishes and priests; the Vatican is not much a part of their lives.
One interesting bit: Catholics polled favored married priests by 67 percent and women priests by 59 percent; even when the group was narrowed to weekly Massgoers only, the numbers were 58 and 54 percent respectively. I'm a little surprised by those latter numbers.
Of course, polls are just that. But interesting info nonetheless.
