{"id":12975,"date":"2016-04-19T11:55:13","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T16:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/most-catholics-rely-heavily-on-their-own-conscience-for-moral-guidance\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:18:34","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:18:34","slug":"most-catholics-rely-heavily-on-their-own-conscience-for-moral-guidance","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2016\/04\/19\/most-catholics-rely-heavily-on-their-own-conscience-for-moral-guidance\/","title":{"rendered":"Most U.S. Catholics rely heavily on their own conscience for moral guidance"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Few<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Despite Pope Francis\u2019 overwhelming popularity<\/a>, only about one-in-ten American Catholics say they turn to the pope \u201ca great deal\u201d for guidance on difficult moral questions, according to a Pew Research Center survey<\/a> on religion in everyday life.<\/p>\n\n

Rather, most Catholics say they look inward for guidance in their lives. Roughly three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (73%) say they rely \u201ca great deal\u201d on their own conscience when facing difficult moral problems, compared with 21% who look to the Catholic Church\u2019s teachings, 15% who turn to the Bible and 11% who say they rely a great deal on the pope.<\/p>\n\n

\"Catholics,<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

Perhaps not surprisingly, Catholics who are highly religious (defined in our survey as those who say they pray daily and attend religious services at least once a week) are considerably more likely than other Catholics to seek guidance from church teachings, the Bible and the pope. Still, no more than half of highly religious Catholics give great weight to any of these sources of guidance, while 74% say they rely a great deal on their conscience.<\/p>\n\n

[t]<\/p>\n\n\n

As a result, Catholics may not see the four response options in this survey as entirely distinct. It is possible they may not look directly<\/em> to the Bible, the pope or the Catholic Church\u2019s teachings when making difficult moral choices, but they may be guided by these sources indirectly through their own \u201cwell-formed\u201d conscience.<\/p>\n\n

We also asked Catholics \u2013 along with all the respondents in the recent survey \u2013 a separate set of questions about how they make \u201cmajor life decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Like Americans as a whole<\/a>, Catholics say they are most likely to rely on themselves when making big decisions. Indeed, about eight-in-ten U.S. Catholics (84%) say they depend \u201ca lot\u201d on their own research in the decision-making process. Advice from family was the second most popular choice among Catholics, with half saying they rely a lot on relatives.<\/p>\n\n

Fewer Catholics say they rely a lot on prayer or personal reflection (39%) or advice from professional experts (30%). And only one-in-ten say they rely a lot on advice from religious leaders (10%) when making major life decisions.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite Pope Francis\u2019 overwhelming popularity, few U.S. Catholics say they turn to the pope \u201ca great deal\u201d for guidance on difficult moral questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":330,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[161,180,170],"bylines":[886],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[517],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-12975","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-beliefs-practices","category-catholicism","category-religious-leaders-institutions","bylines-claire-gecewicz","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-religion"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":345,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2016\/04\/19\/most-catholics-rely-heavily-on-their-own-conscience-for-moral-guidance\/","art_direction":{"A1":{"id":24014,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png?w=420&h=317&crop=1","width":420,"height":317,"chartArt":false},"A2":{"id":24014,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"A3":{"id":24014,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png?w=194&h=110&crop=1","width":194,"height":110,"chartArt":false},"A4":{"id":24014,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"XL":{"id":24014,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png?w=420&h=405&crop=1","width":420,"height":405,"chartArt":false},"social":{"id":24014,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png","url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2016\/04\/FT_16.04.19_catholicGuidance_420px.png?w=420&h=453&crop=1","width":420,"height":453,"chartArt":false}},"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Most U.S. Catholics rely heavily on their own conscience for moral guidance","description":"Despite Pope Francis\u2019 overwhelming popularity, few U.S. Catholics say they turn to the pope \u201ca great deal\u201d for guidance on difficult moral questions.","og_title":"Most U.S. Catholics rely heavily on their own conscience for moral guidance","og_description":"Despite Pope Francis\u2019 overwhelming popularity, few U.S. Catholics say they turn to the pope \u201ca great deal\u201d for guidance on difficult moral questions.","schema_type":"Article","noindex":false,"canonical_url":"","primary_terms":[],"custom_schema":[],"og_image":24014,"indexnow_submitted_at":null,"gsc_index_status":null},"prepublish_checks":{},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"relatedPostsOrdered":[],"bylinesOrdered":[{"key":"291705a3-442c-4535-9d8c-fafc1d63e673","termId":886}],"acknowledgementsOrdered":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/12975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/short-read"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12975"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/12975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102910,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/short-read\/12975\/revisions\/102910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"bylines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bylines?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"datasets","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/datasets?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"_post_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_post_visibility?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"formats","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/formats?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"_fund_pool","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_fund_pool?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"languages","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/languages?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"regions-countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions-countries?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"research-teams","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-teams?post=12975"},{"taxonomy":"workflow-status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/workflow-status?post=12975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}