Wednesday, August 31, 2011

There's Work To Be Done

From The Atlantic Wire:
According to the Public Religion Research Institute, America is evenly divided on the issue of gay marriage: 47 percent favor its legalization while another 47 percent oppose it, as can be seen in the institute's chart above. But strong preferences manifest themselves among religious groups. Unsurprisingly, about seven in 10 of those who aren't affiliated with any religion or who are affiliated with one other than Christianity support same-sex marriage. What is surprising is that a slim majority of Catholics and a similar-size majority of white mainline Protestants support gay marriage too. In contrast, 60 percent of black Protestants and 76 percent of white evangelicals are against its legalization.

Those Catholic schools have been doing a great job over the years in catechizing the faithful, eh? This embarrassing survey should be a clarion call for bishops and leaders in Catholic education in America to finally get serious about what is actually being taught to students at so-called Catholic schools and universities. From the perspective of a layman, I can only shrug when I hear the annual calls to "support your local Catholic school". Support them? For what? Start producing results that actually serve the unity of Catholics, rather than contributing to the divide, and then we'll talk. I speak from experience (diocesan grade school and Jesuit high school) when I state categorically that most Catholic schools are not transmitting to their students the nuts and bolts of the faith. Surveys like these only add weight to that claim.

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