(This article courtesy of Agape Press.)
Essentially, polls are disguised editorials, and this question from CNN.com was a good example. Referring to the big confabulation of cardinals on “pedophile priests,” it asked: “Would the proposal from the Vatican conference adequately address the priest sex abuse crisis?”
Out of nearly 50,000 voters, a whopping 88 percent clicked “no.”
Given that answer, here’s a better question: How in Heaven’s name could anyone, other than an authentic clairvoyant, answer it intelligently?
This isn’t polling; it’s soothsaying, and soothsaying that shapes opinions at that. Ah ha! Most people think the conference won’t do enough. More must be done!
But this little interrogatory is only a small example of editorializing through polls.
The media always seem to be giving us new results from surveys of Catholics on the key, hot-button issues: abortion, contraception and ordaining women, and because of the latest scandal, celibacy.
Generally speaking, the question is this: “Do you agree with the position of the Catholic Church on ….” Just fill in the blank.
But such questions are freighted with problems.
First, they assume the Catholic answering the question knows enough about Church teaching on sex to oppose or support it intelligently. Bad assumption.
Many Catholics don’t know third-grade catechism (what the Immaculate Conception is, for instance), much less the moral theology behind the teaching against artificial contraception.
Second, it also assumes that rank-and-file approval of Church teaching matters in the same way as rank-and-file Republicans approving the GOP platform. But asking Catholics about ordaining women isn’t like asking Republicans about drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Whether Catholics “agree” with Church traditions or teachings, particularly those on faith and morals, is irrelevant. The latter are objective truths known either by revelation or reason. They cannot “change.”
That doesn’t mean the media can’t ask questions, but it does mean they don’t know what they are asking, and confuse, or better yet, conflate, what happens in the temple of democracy with what happens in the temple of God.
But the media has its goals. Being hostile to most Catholic teachings, they naively believe inflaming Catholics against the Church will pressure the Church to change.
So naturally, when the most recent scandal over sexually predatory priests broke, the first question asked was: “Should the Church dump celibacy?”
The media also hope these questions will get them a snappy lead for a newspaper story, or that enticing opener for the second segment of the evening news: “And a new poll reveals that 80% of American Roman Catholics disagree with Church teaching on birth control.”
They want the chance to show that footage of kneeling Catholics, then to run the soundbite from some unfrocked nun or heretic.
Happily, the media will never “change” a Catholic Church teaching crucial to the faith, meaning an infallible teaching, no matter how many polls they take. Absolute truth is immutable.
So maybe it’s time faithful Catholics asked the media a question: “Why can’t you leave the Catholic Church alone?”
R. Cort Kirkwood is a syndicated columnist and managing editor of the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
