Synod: Poll finds practicing, non-practicing Catholics in America are worlds apart

Oct 14, 2008
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome

In reporting on American Catholics, the head of the Knights of Columbus today argued, media outlets should distinguish between “practicing” and “non-practicing” Catholics – because new polling data he presented shows these two groups are, in many ways, worlds apart.

Carl Anderson, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, spoke this evening at a Rome news conference to release a new survey of Catholic voters, commissioned by the Knights and carried out by the Marist College Institute of Public Opinion in late September and early October.

Anderson is in Rome attending the Oct. 5-26 Synod of Bishops on the Bible. His news conference this evening was also beamed live via satellite to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

The Marist College poll found that 65 percent of American Catholics are “practicing,” defined as attending Mass at least once or twice a month, while the 35 percent who don’t attend that often were defined as “non-practicing.” the rest

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