‘What Catholic Women Think About Faith, Conscience, and Contraception’
September 21, 2012
The Ethics and Public Policy Center has conducted a survey on Catholic women’s attitudes towards contraception.
“Critics of the Church’s teaching propose an image of Catholic women fiercely and forever opposed to the Church’s teaching on contraception, and suggest (wrongly) that nearly all Catholic women use contraception,” according to a preliminary report on the survey.
The report added:
Our research found that up to one-third of church-going Catholic women (26-33%, depending on the question) hold mistaken beliefs about the Church’s teaching on contraception. For example, 33% of Catholic women incorrectly believe that the Church teaches that couples have the right to decide the moral acceptability of contraception regardless of Church teaching. When presented with an accurate description of the Church’s teachings on family planning, many Catholic women show reluctance to completely reject the Church’s teaching …
While few Catholic women overall (13%) completely accept the Church’s teaching, that number doubles (27%) among young (18-34) women who attend church every week. And it climbs still higher among women who both attend Mass weekly and have been to confession within the past year—37% of these women completely accept the Church’s teaching.
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Further information:
- What Catholic Women Think About Faith, Conscience, and Contraception (EPPC)
- Carolyn Moynihan: Catholic women and that other contraceptive mandate (MercatorNet)
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Posted by: unum -
Sep. 21, 2012 7:42 PM ET USA
Catholics have the right to reject any teaching of Christ or His Church. They have a free will and it is a gift from God that makes them responsible for their own behavior. However, once they reject the teachings of Christ and/or His Church, they are no longer His followers until they repent and once again agree with Him. Calling oneself a Catholic or Christian when not in agreement with the teachings of Jesus or His Church will make no difference in the hereafter.
