c. 1996 Religion News Service

(RNS)-The next pope should allow women priests, married priests and more lay pontifical advisers, according to a poll of U.S. Catholics released today (May 30).

The survey, conducted by the Gallup Organization, was commissioned by sociologist and author Andrew M. Greeley of the University of Chicago and Michael Hout, a sociologist and director of the Survey Center at the University of California at Berkeley.

Among the findings: 69 percent of respondents said they would prefer a pope who allowed priests to marry, and 65 percent supported the idea of women priests.”Support for a more democratic and pluralistic Church is consistent and widespread among American Catholics, perhaps not such a surprising phenomenon in a Catholic population which lives in a pluralistic and a democratic society,”Greeley and Hout wrote.”Nonetheless, a desire for a more pluralistic and democratic church institution exists despite repeated statements of priests and bishops that the Catholic Church is not a democracy.” Greeley is a frequent columnist for Religion News Service.

He and Hout paid Gallup $9,240 to conduct the survey of 770 U.S. Catholics. The poll, taken in March and April, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Greeley tied the survey results to publication of his latest novel,”White Smoke,”a fictional depiction of the next conclave in which cardinals gather to elect a pope.”The theme of my new novel, `White Smoke,’ which comes out next week, is that the issue at the next papal election, whenever it is, will be a struggle for power between the conservatives and the moderates in the church,”Greeley said.”I thought it would be interesting and useful to know what the Catholic laity thought about these matters.” Among the survey’s other findings were:

-69 percent said they favored a pope who is more concerned about the lives of ordinary people than about religious issues.

-65 percent would like a pope who allows the clergy and laity to choose their bishops. Bishops currently are appointed by the Vatican.

-58 percent preferred a pope who would give more decision-making power to American bishops.

Greeley and Hout said the survey highlights a gender gap in Catholic attitudes. Catholic women younger than 40 were most likely to advocate the changes cited in the survey results.”The image so dear to many Church leaders of docile and unquestioningly loyal Catholic women simply is no longer accurate, if it ever was,”they wrote.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, associate director of communications for the U.S. Catholic Conference in Washington, disagreed that such an image exists.”I think women in the church have always been a rather strong-thinking population,”she said.”Anyone who has dealt with women in the church-I don’t recall them coming away thinking they’re nice, docile sheep. They’re people who are free to challenge.” Walsh dismissed the poll as a”publicity stunt”by Greeley, noting he had just published his new novel.”Andrew Greeley is blowing smoke here,”she said.

The Rev. Thomas Reese, senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, said the survey-like others Greeley has conducted as research associate at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago-“stimulates thinking in the church about issues of great concern.” The views of Catholic women are significant, Reese also said.”I think women are the most important constituency in the American church today because they pass on the faith to future generations, both as mothers and as religious educators,”he said.”If Catholic women in the United States become anticlerical and become alienated from the church, this will be a disaster comparable to the loss of the working classes in Europe in the 19th century.” In the 1800s, the Catholic Church in Europe lost working class members who became alienated and viewed the church as part of the establishment, he said.

The Greeley-Hout survey also found that 78 percent of respondents favored”letting representative lay people have more of a voice in the Catholic Church, for example, by serving as advisers to the pope.” Walsh and Reese noted that lay people already serve in advisory roles on pontifical councils, including ones concerning the laity, the family and justice and peace.”There are a number of councils and congregations that do not have lay members, but these do,”Reese said of the Vatican administration.

MJP END BANKS