Most Catholics oppose overturning Roe v. Wade

Never believe a label.  Most people have no idea what is meant – to the true believers – by terms like pro-life, conservative, and even Catholic.  Thus, while a plurality of Americans continues to refer to themselves as pro-life, a solid majority across decades continues to favor keeping  Roe v. Wade the law of the land.  So reports Pew Research in a recent study on American attitudes towards Roe v. Wade as we approach the 40th anniversary of this now institutionalized national controversy and disaster.  Now, Pew skews pretty left, so the results may be a bit off, but I doubt it’s a stretch to say that at least a bare majority of Americans support retaining Roe v. Wade, from the data Pew presented (and thanks to reader TB for the tip):

Worse still, a solid majority of Catholics supports Roe v. Wade, and white Catholics are even more likely to do so:

Amazing.  But, then again, much hinges on how questions are asked and whether the respondents even clearly understand what Roe v. Wade was and what it means.

The massive disconnect is that a plurality, even in Pew’s poll, says abortion is immoral.  But they are apparently OK with keeping something blatantly immoral legal. Is this a slowly fading echo of Christian moral belief in a rapidly paganizing culture, a sign that people really had no idea what was being asked, or just a hugely nonsensical cognitive dissonance – abortion isn’t for me, but I wouldn’t deny it to someone who may want one?  Do these people not know that there is a third party in this equation – the babies that are killed?  Anyway, Pew reports the following:

However, the public continues to be divided over whether it is morally acceptable to have an abortion. Nearly half (47%) say it is morally wrong to have an abortion, while just 13% find this morally acceptable; 27% say this is not a moral issue and 9% volunteer that it depends on the situation. These opinions have changed little since 2006.

The only religious grouping that opposes abortion is white evangelical protestants.  What that tells me, is that politics trumps religion in the lives of a huge number of “believers” in the United States.  Most Catholics are still democrat, for some reason. They’d rather go with the demonrat stance on abortion that follow the Church.

It is still amazing, and disheartening, to see these numbers regarding Catholics.  We’ve seen them before, and what is most distressing is that abortion is probably the one moral area where there has been at least occasional catechesis for many of the faithful.  Whatever, it seems to have been very ineffective.  I know there are so many priests - in this Diocese and especially beyond – who tell their flock something very different from the constant moral and doctrinal belief of the Church.  And I guess they are just so very effective. Or people just tune out the things they don’t want to hear.  It’s also important to note that the vast majority of self-described Catholics rarely if ever attend Mass, and never consider their faith outside a cultural label. In short, catholycs.

But this is a scandal of epic proportions. If Catholics – CATHOLICS – can’t even agree that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, that baby murder should stop, how can we expect them to believe far more ethereal things like the Real Presence, the need for Confession in any decent spiritual life, etc?  We can’t.  These people have been catechized by the culture and feel-good priests who never even slightly challenge their modernist, cult-of-man presuppositions.

Even more incredibly, Pew reports later on that 58% of Catholics, and 55% of white Catholics, believe abortion is morally wrong – but half those who know it to be morally wrong support Roe v. Wade remaining law, anyways?  How do you do that?  I know…….personalism, and the “inviolability of the individual conscience.”  I may think abortion is wrong for ME, but I couldn’t possibly deny the “right” to abortion for someone else.  Sheesh.

Or, the American people have devolved to a mass of fickle mush-heads, whose greatest concern is what’s on TV tonight.  Reason and logic don’t enter in, internal consistency is waaaay too difficult, just give them McDonald’s, Honey Boo Boo, porntube, and Keystone Light and they’re totally satiated.

It’s difficult not to become jaded when confronted with such banality of evil.  But where sin abounds, Grace abounds all the more.  Pray.

 

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