Over the years, I’ve frequently tussled with conservative/traditionalist Catholics about the response to Vatican II. Almost always, I encounter the hell-in-a-handbasket stance, that’s it’s all been downhill since Vatican II. But the polling, at least here in the States, doesn’t support that. In fact, the only time in the last forty years that Catholic confidence surpassed Protestant was the year the last of MR1 was implemented.
If you trust the same people who suggest the drop in accepting the real presence, they might tell you it’s all because of John Paul II bishops and more recently, the cover-up of sex abuse by bishops. The graph of the years 1973-1991:
Gallup took a break in the 90’s, then returned to tracking Catholic/Protestant confidence at what was for us Catholics, a very low point indeed:
Anybody remember what happened for Catholics in 2007?
How do you think St Blog’s would view confidence in the institution? Above or below 46%?
Catholic Sensibility 