Crisis of Faith? Even practicing Catholics say Church has done a poor job handling sexual abuse issue

Angus Reid Institute
May 28, 2019

http://angusreid.org/catholic-church-canada/

In the popular imagination, the story of the Catholic Church over the last two decades has been one of scandal, attempted reform, and further scandal. Decades of allegations of sexual abuse by clergy – combined with opaque policies for addressing them – have eroded public trust in the Church around the world.

A new public opinion poll from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds Canada is not immune to this trend. And yet, though most Canadians – including practicing Catholics – say the Church has done a poor job of handling this issue, the general public in this country seems to differentiate between the Church as an institution and people of faith more generally.

Scandal in the Catholic Church has not caused a broader crisis of faith in Canada today, though it has done notable damage to Canadian Catholics’ opinions of their Church.

While some of this damage is almost certainly the result of concerns Canadians have about incidents of abuse that took place elsewhere in the world, it’s notable that one-in-three practicing Catholics say their local Church community has had problems with clerical sexual abuse over the years.

Ultimately, this is an issue that the Catholic Church in Canada will need to effectively address and move on from if it hopes to recover. Most Canadians, and many practicing Catholics, say they expect the Church to emerge from this issue weakened as an institution.

• One change that some have suggested would help the Church recover is to put greater emphasis on lay involvement in Church operations. Most practicing Catholics (54%) say there is currently adequate room for such lay involvement, but some four-in-ten (40%) say there should be more

• Canadians hold net favourable views of adherents to eight of nine religious groups asked about in this survey, with only Muslims viewed negatively overall (17% positive, 39% negative). Moreover, views today are more positive, overall, than they were in 2015 for every group except Catholics (10 percentage points more negative), Protestants (down 3 points), and Buddhists (also down 3)

• Among Catholics who say their local Church community had a problem with clerical sexual abuse, nearly half (46%) say this issue was not adequately addressed

• Practicing Catholics are more likely than the general population to say the Church’s efforts to address clerical sexual abuse have been “effective,” (58% of practicing Catholics say this, compared to 23% of Canadians overall)

About ARI

The Angus Reid Institute (ARI) was founded in October 2014 by pollster and sociologist, Dr. Angus Reid. ARI is a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research foundation established to advance education by commissioning, conducting and disseminating to the public accessible and impartial statistical data, research and policy analysis on economics, political science, philanthropy, public administration, domestic and international affairs and other socio-economic issues of importance to Canada and its world.

INDEX:

Part 1: Religion and Catholicism in Canada

• Attitudes largely consistent over time

• Catholics are Canada’s largest religious group

• Who’s leaving the Church, and why?

Part 2: Proximity to the abuse problem

• One-in-three see potential problems in their local Catholic community

• One-in-five say problems persist

Part 3: Consequences

• A uniquely Catholic problem?

• Most say the Church has done a poor job responding to abuse

• Many Catholics say the Church is ‘still covering things up’

• Scandal weakens Catholics’ opinions of their Church

• One-in-five say their personal faith has been weakened

Part 4: Clergy or Laity?

• Many see greater room for lay involvement

• One-in-three are currently involved in parish activities

Attitudes largely consistent over time

The bulk of this report deals with the Catholic Church and its response to sexual abuse allegations against some members of its priesthood. Before delving deeply into those issues, however, it’s worth taking a look at the overall landscape of religion and faith in Canada, as well as Catholicism’s place in that landscape.

The Angus Reid Institute has done lots of research on Canadians’ religious beliefs and the role of faith in Canadian society in recent years.

At the personal level, Canadians’ religious beliefs have remained quite consistent over that time. In 2015, ARI found 30 per cent of Canadians describing themselves as “inclined to embrace religion,” 26 per cent saying they were “inclined to reject religion,” and a plurality (44%) identifying themselves as “somewhere in between.”

There has been slightly more variation in Canadians’ views of specific religious groups between 2015 and today. Looking at “net positivity” – the percentage of Canadians saying they have a positive view of each group minus the percentage who say they have a negative one – shows Canadians feeling more warmly in 2019 than they did in 2015 toward six of the nine faith groups asked about in this survey.

The three who are viewed more negatively today are Catholics (a net +26, down from +36 in 2015), Protestants (+33, down from +36), and Buddhists (+32, down from +35). That said, it’s notable that each of these groups is consistently more likely to be viewed positively than negatively, overall.

Indeed, only one religious group – Muslims (-22, up from -29 in 2015) – has a net negative score overall. As seen in the graph that follows, net perceptions of Jews, Hindus, atheists, Evangelical Christians, and Sikhs are all more positive than negative, and have improved at least slightly since 2015.