CURRENT RESERCH

Current Research

• Homosexuality is becoming rarer in the American Catholic priesthood and can be expected to be cut in half over the next 20 years, according to a study published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion (20:8). Homosexuality has been widely documented as being more prevalent in the Catholic priesthood than in the general population. Researchers Mark Regnerus, Brad Vermurlen, and Stephen Cranney analyzed data from surveys of Catholic priests in 2002 and 2020–21, finding that while the aggregate level of homosexuality in the U.S. priest population has remained unchanged since 2002, there has been a declining share of homosexual priests among recent successive cohorts. They found that homosexuality increased (and heterosexuality decreased) up until the 1980s, but that since “then, priests who are strictly heterosexual have become more common with each successive cohort, reaching 88 percent among those ordained in 2010 or later.” By 2041, priests who self-identify as either entirely or mostly homosexual are expected to shrink to roughly 7 percent. These dynamics “reflect the Catholic Church’s increased success in implementing its stated institutional goals and policies,” the researchers conclude.

  (Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, https://www.religjournal.com/pdf/ijrr20008b.pdf)

  

  Source: IJRR

• While evangelicals have started many political parties in Latin America since the 1980s, those parties that have strong institutional support from churches, a broad platform, and eventually develop an autonomous internal structure may be best able to survive and thrive. In a study published in the journal Social Compass (online in December), Bibiana Ortega (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) estimates that at least 41 evangelical political parties have been created in Latin America in the last four decades. She focuses on Colombia, with its paradox of having the fewest evangelicals compared to most other Latin American countries (comprising about 12 percent of the population) yet also the highest number of evangelical political parties (EPP), totaling seven.

  

  In analyzing party documents, interviews with officials, bills presented in congress, and press reports, Ortega finds that of the seven parties, only four were viable and showed endurance from 1990 to 2018, most particularly MIRA (the Independent Movement of Absolute Renovation), the longest lasting EPP in Latin America. From 2000 to 2007, MIRA received support from the prominent megachurch, the Church of God Ministry of Jesus Christ International, which is active in 46 countries. Becoming autonomous from 2007 on, the party has developed a broad program, from its first issue of religious freedom to the many others represented in the 1,182 bills it has presented, touching on justice, transit, foreign trade, and the agricultural sector, among many other issues. Ortega finds that megachurch support in a party’s early stages is crucial for its endurance.

  (Social Compass, https://journals.sagepub.com/home/SCP)

  

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  Britain’s controversial assisted dying legislation is opposed in direct proportion to the degree of importance people attach to religion in their lives, according to two surveys reported in the newsletter British Religion in Numbers (November). The first survey, conducted online by Focaldata among 5,033 Britons, found, as have previous surveys, a substantial majority—73 percent—in favor of assisted dying. The proportion was high even among the religious, at 68 percent, though the “nones” agreed by 82 percent. When caveats and counterarguments were introduced, such as by including children or the poor in assisted dying measures, no majorities were found to support these measures among either secular or religious respondents. The second survey was conducted online among 2,011 adults by More in Common. It asked if respondents would personally consider assisted dying themselves, and 55 percent said they would. But the proportions varied considerably according to the degree of importance respondents attached to religion in their lives, ranging from 35 percent of those for whom religion was very important to 66 percent of those for whom it was not important at all. While 65 percent of the whole sample endorsed changing the law to enable people to receive assistance in dying, only 41 percent of respondents who were very religious did so (compared to 76 percent of those for whom religion was not important at all). When asked if politicians should listen to religious leaders on the matter, just 14 percent agreed that they should (with 40 percent of the very religious agreeing).

  (British Religion in Numbers, https://www.brin.ac.uk/counting-religion-in-britain-november-2024/)