|
Liberals Already Squeaking: Next Pope MUST Be Liberal!
 Most Americans want the next pope to work for changes in Roman Catholic Church policies to allow priests to marry and women to join the priesthood.
| "Yeah! We should be more like the Episcopalians! Look how well-respected they are! And their churches are always full..." |
And they want more done to combat sexual abuse by priests, an AP-Ipsos poll found.
| I guess if they're more like the Episcopalians more people will keep their kids home instead of sending them to church. That should help. |
A solid majority of Americans, and Catholics in the country, are calling for the changes even while saying they widely admire Pope John Paul II, who favored the traditional policies.
| I'm not sure what non-Catholic opinion has to do with it. If you want to have an opinion, join the church and obey the rules... |
"He crossed so many boundaries, opened doors to many governments," said Joseph Riess, a Catholic businessman from Vienna, Va. "But I think it's time for changes."
| "We don't live in a world of good and evil anymore..." |
Just over half of Americans, 51 percent, and almost three-fourths of Catholics say John Paul, who died Saturday, will be remembered as one of the greatest popes, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs.
| They said that about John XXIII, too. We'll see how long the attention span is... |
The U.S. Catholic church is struggling with a variety of problems, including a dramatically shrinking U.S. priesthood, disagreement over the proper role for lay leaders, and a conservative-liberal divide over sexuality, women's ordination and clergy celibacy.
| They weren't struggling with those issues back in the Latin Rite days... |
About two-thirds of those polled said priests should be allowed to marry and almost that many said they want women in the priesthood.
| "If the Episcopalians can have them, why can't we?" |
A majority of Catholics supported both steps. More than four in five Americans — and about the same number of Catholics — said they want to see the next pope do more to address the problem of priests sexually abusing children. The church has been trying to deal with an abuse crisis that bubbled to the surface in January 2002 in the Archdiocese of Boston, then spread throughout the country. Since then, the church has adopted a toughened discipline policy, enacted child protection and victim outreach plans in dioceses, and removed hundreds of accused priests from church work.
| So what else would you like done? Firing squads? Autos da fe? |
Americans were divided when asked from where the next pope should come. Just over a third said he should be from Europe, while a similar number said he should be from a part of the world where Catholicism is growing fastest, like Africa or Latin America. The rest weren't sure. "I don't think it matters where they're from," said Heather Schramko, a clinical researcher and a Catholic from Perrysburg, Ohio. "But they need to modernize the church."
| I'm not sure about the logic of that sentiment. Catholicism's advantage has been that it actually does take a position on matters of right and wrong, whether you agree with its conclusions or not... |
The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,001 adults was taken Friday to Sunday and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-04-04 |
