Full disclosure – I've been a member of the K of C for almost 20 years.
John Allen of NCR (National Catholic Reporter) has an interesting column on the just-released findings of a poll of Catholics and their positions on various issues, as well as political philosophy (conservative vs. moderate vs. liberal).
The poll shows a clear differentiation between "practicing" and "non-practicing" Catholics – and the bar is set pretty low for the definition of "practicing". You are defined as a practicing Catholic if you go to Mass once or twice a month (Uhhh, what happened to Sunday Mass obligation?).
Anyway, here is the article, with an excerpt below,but well worth reading in it's entirety:
The Marist College poll found that 65 percent of American Catholics are “practicing,” defined as attending Mass at least once or twice a month, while the 35 percent who don’t attend that often were defined as “non-practicing.”
In some ways, the most interesting results of the survey concern the differences between these two groups.
For example, according to the survey, 59 percent of practicing Catholics describe themselves as “pro-life,” as opposed to 44 percent of the general American population, while 65 percent of non-practicing Catholics say they are “pro-choice,” as opposed to 50 percent of the general population.
On same-sex marriage, 46 percent of non-practicing Catholics are in favor, as opposed to just 30 percent of all Americans, while 75 percent of practicing Catholics are opposed.
“Practicing Catholics hold traditional values at a rate equal to or higher than the American population at large, while non-practicing Catholics are less traditional,” Anderson said, summarizing the results.
“Catholics who are no longer practicing hold positions far outside the mainstream of Catholicism, and have significant disagreements with the moral teaching of the church," he said.
Anderson therefore called upon the media to distinguish between these two groups – practicing and non-practicing – rather than referring to Catholics as an “undifferentiated block.”
There are links in the article to some of the raw data, and here is one of them:
http://www.kofc.org/un/cmf/resources/Communications/documents/moralissues.pdf
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