Poll: More Cath. Leaving Church Over Sex Abuse; Feel Church Too Slow in Reducing Clerical Abuse

A growing number of American Catholics are reconsidering their loyalty to the global church as it continues on a slow path toward reforming how it handles clerical sexual abuse, the Huffington Post website reports today (March 15, 2019).

A Gallup poll published on March 13 found that 37 percent of U.S. Catholics have questioned whether they will remain part of the church this year amid recent news about sexual abuse of young people by priests.

This is up from 22 percent who said the same in 2002, the last time Gallup conducted polling on this question. At that time, the Boston Globe Spotlight team's investigation into clerical abuse and the church's cover-up in the Boston area led to exposing the scandal nationwide.

Over the past year, many Catholics questioned whether the church's secretive, self-protective culture has really changed since 2002, and whether bishops have been held accountable for covering up the issue.