85% Of Young American Catholics Support Gays

While the Vatican appears poised to knuckle under to the bitter old men in dresses assembled in Rome for the special synod on the family despite the apparent demotion of anti-gay bigot Cardinal Raymond Burke, a huge problem remains looming for the Church in America: 85% of young Catholics support gay rights and 75% support marriage equality.  That's the finding of a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The main support for the Church's institutional homophobia and mistreatment of gays (and divorced and remarried Catholics) is in the over 65 age bracket, the bracket that is dying off.  Literally.  Thus, the irony is that the far right "purists" in the America Catholic Church need to face the reality that, if the Church doesn't change, they will ultimately become a small minority branch of a black church centered in Africa.  Given the white supremacists views of older far right Americans, its hard to not find this trend as a delicious irony.  Karma can be a bitch.  Here are highlights from Pew:

Fully 85% of self-identified Catholics ages 18-29 said in a 2014 Pew Research Center survey that homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared with just 13% who said it should be discouraged. Older age groups are less likely to favor acceptance. But even among Catholics ages 65 and older, 57% say that homosexuality should be accepted.

 Some of these differences may correlate with the frequency of church attendance. Our research has found that older Catholics attend Mass more frequently than do their younger counterparts, and that Catholics who attend Mass at least weekly are more likely to say that homosexuality should be discouraged than those who do not. But even among churchgoing Catholics of all ages – that is, those who attend Mass at least weekly – roughly twice as many say homosexuality should be accepted (60%) as say it should be discouraged (31%).

Similarly, despite the church’s continued opposition to same-sex marriage, most U.S. Catholics (57%) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally wed, according to aggregated 2014 Pew Research surveys. And again, younger Catholics are particularly likely to express this view. Three-quarters of Catholic adults under 30 support legal same-sex marriage, compared with 53% of Catholics ages 30 and older (including just 38% of those 65 and older).

 Given that a major it of the Church's funding comes from North America, it will be interesting to watch the Church's growing financial problems, especially where shuttered churches and Catholic schools are becoming more common.  Those who would "save" the Church will be the death of it.