POLL: A Majority of Catholics Agree With Pope’s Forward-Thinking View of Homosexuality

A few weeks ago, Pope Francis released a statement reprimanding the Catholic Church for focusing too much on homosexuality. The utterance sent shockwaves around the world, because who’s ever heard a pope say anything like that before? But you know who wasn’t surprised? Catholics. Quinnipiac University recently released results from a poll that says two-thirds of the U.S. Catholic population agrees with their divine leader. Reuters reports:

Sixty-eight percent of American Catholics agree with comments the Pope made to that effect in an interview published in the Jesuit magazine Civilta Cattolica, while 23 percent disagreed, according to the poll. There was little difference in opinion between observant and less-observant Catholics, women and men, and among age groups, the poll found.

American Catholics also like their new pope, with 89 percent having a “favorable” or “very favorable” opinion, and only 4 percent voicing an unfavorable opinion, the poll found.

“Maybe they were just waiting for a Jesuit,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. Francis is the first pope from the religious order of the Jesuits, an order known for its intellectuals and iconoclasts.

In the [Civita Cattolica] interview, Francis reaffirmed traditional church teachings, but said the church must “find a new balance” or risk seeing its entire moral edifice collapse “like a house of cards.”