Introduction
Research carried out by the Public Religion Research Institute in 2012 and 2015 in the USA, and based on a series of surveys produced the following results for American Catholics:
Catholic Population (Survey: N=3,003)1
American Catholics - White by Percentage
American Catholics - Hispanic by Percentage
Catholics/Former Catholics - As a percentage of the total US population
Same Sex Marriage (Survey: N=3,003)1
Should Gay and Lesbian Couples be allowed to marry legally?
Abortion (Survey: N=3,003)1
Should Abortion be legal in all or most cases?
Is Abortion Morally Wrong?
Contraception (Survey: N=3,003)1
Is the use of Contraceptives morally acceptable?
Birth Control and Teenagers (Survey: N=1,007)2
Should methods of birth control be available to teenagers 16 or older?
Death Penalty (Survey: N=3,003)1
Should persons convicted of Murder receive life imprisonment or the death penalty?
Social Justice v Morality (Survey: N=3,003)1
Should the Catholic Church's public policyfocus more on social justice
and helping the poor or issues such as Abortion and the Right to Life? *
* Results are given for Catholics who attend church one or more times per week.
The "Pope Francis Effect" (Survey: N=1,331)3
Has your view of the Catholic Church changed over the last few years?
Other findings from this survey
- 67% of all Americans have either a 'very favourable' or 'mostly favourable' view of Pope Francis. For the Catholic Church as a whole, this figure drops to 56%.
- 90% of persons who are currently Catholic have a favourable view of Pope Francis and 66% of them felt that he would attract more Catholics back to the church.
- Just 38% of Catholics are in agreement with the views of Pope Francis on abortion and 48% on same-sex marriage.
1 http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/10/american-values-survey-2012/
2 http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/03/march-rns-2012-research/
3 http://publicreligion.org/research/2015/08/survey-the-francis-effect-u-s-catholic-attitudes-on-pope-francis-the-catholic-church-and-american-politics/
