New york times poll proves revealing

[Soutane]

NEW YORK TIMES POLL PROVES REVEALING

May 5, 2010

Catholic League president Bill Donohue finds interesting data in the New York Times poll on the Catholic Church:

The pope’s favorability rating among Catholics at the end of March was 27 percent. After hearing the non-stop negative media reports over the past month, his favorability rating jumped to 43 percent. How can this be? It’s due to the backlash. When asked whether the media have been harder on the Catholic Church, 64 percent of Catholics said yes, and almost half said the abuse stories were blown out of proportion.

catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1847

 

[lil_flower_luv]

Those of us who have been defending the pope, criticizing the media and telling the truth about the link between homosexuality and sexual abuse have reason to be pleased with the survey results.

Some GOOD news for once!

God Bless Benedict.

 

[yellowantphil]

Here is the original article from the New York Times. The complete survey results are here.

 

[Sherry_G]

How many good Catholics do you know who would waste a dime subscribing to the New York Times, anyway? Any “Poll” they conduct has a built in negative bias based on their readership which is comprised of leftists and secular modernists. To show a positive leaning result in favor of the Catholic church no matter how small is a true miracle.

 

[Non_Serviam]

NEW YORK TIMES POLL PROVES REVEALING

May 5, 2010

Catholic League president Bill Donohue finds interesting data in the New York Times poll on the Catholic Church:

Bill Donohue is either statistically illiterate or intentionally sought to deceive others with this press release (thanks to yellowantphil for the complete data).

First, we see in questions 30 and 32 that the majority believed that in the past both the Vatican and the Bishops tried to cover up the problem. This shows that all the attempted Catholic League spin around “it was different back then” and “the church just did what the psychologists told it” wasn’t believed by the majority, Catholic or not.

In questions 31 and 33 we see that the majority believe that more effort is directed toward prevention than coverup as stated in the pres release, yet in spite of this only 37% of those surveyed felt a lot of confidence that the Vatican would make the changes needed to protect children in the future. Other questions also speak to this lack of overall confidence. (q. 39 for example)

Likewise, Donohue misleads with his comments on homosexuality. He points out that “only” 37% of Catholics (q. 41) think it is not a factor in the abuse and equates this with “telling the truth” and yet, looking at q. 40 we see that "only 35% of Catholics think celibacy isn’t a factor in the abuse. In other words more Catholics surveyed think celibacy played a role in the abuse than homosexuality-yet Donohue never mentions this part of the “truth”. It was cherrypicking, pure and simple.

The majority of these same Catholics in questions 14 and 15 indicated that they believed the Vatican was “out of touch” with the needs of Catholics today, while their local priest was “in touch” with those needs.

Finally, what were some of the ways they indicated the “out of touch/in touch” dichotomy?

Questions 16-18 show that of Catholics surveyed:

• 2/3 believe that priests should be allowed to marry
• 59% believe that women should be ordained as priests; and
• 77% believe that someone who doesn’t believe in the authority of the Pope can be a good Catholic

If these are the people Bill Donohue wants to get his “truth” from, then its clear he’ll take any scrap of positive news and slant it to try and promote his spin. Previous Catholic League publications have made it clear he doesn’t consider such people holding such views “real” Catholics-to embrace them now for a few statistics is indicative of an “any port in a storm” mentality.

IMO, Catholics are better served by reading the figures and seeing them as what they are-the opinions of those who were surveyed. Some answers you may agree with and others you may disagree with, but recognizing that they don’t “prove” anything is a better approach than trying to cherrypick in a dog’s breakfast of opinion questions.

 

[yellowantphil]

Any “Poll” they conduct has a built in negative bias based on their readership which is comprised of leftists and secular modernists.

The poll was conducted by phone in conjunction with CBS News, and NY Times readership had nothing to do with it. There is no bias. Read the poll questions, and look at the description of how the poll was conducted. The only potential bias I see is that they only called landline phones—most of the people I know don’t even have those anymore!

 

[Guyonthestreet]

IMO, Catholics are better served by reading the figures and seeing them as what they are-the opinions of those who were surveyed. Some answers you may agree with and others you may disagree with, but recognizing that they don’t “prove” anything is a better approach than trying to cherrypick in a dog’s breakfast of opinion questions.

Not forgetting the poll size. 1079.

Hardly scientific or exhaustive.

 

[Soutane]

Bill Donohue is either statistically illiterate or intentionally sought to deceive others with this press release (thanks to yellowantphil for the complete data).

First, we see in questions 30 and 32 that the majority believed that in the past both the Vatican and the Bishops tried to cover up the problem. This shows that all the attempted Catholic League spin around “it was different back then” and “the church just did what the psychologists told it” wasn’t believed by the majority, Catholic or not.

In questions 31 and 33 we see that the majority believe that more effort is directed toward prevention than coverup as stated in the pres release, yet in spite of this only 37% of those surveyed felt a lot of confidence that the Vatican would make the changes needed to protect children in the future. Other questions also speak to this lack of overall confidence. (q. 39 for example)

Likewise, Donohue misleads with his comments on homosexuality. He points out that “only” 37% of Catholics (q. 41) think it is not a factor in the abuse and equates this with “telling the truth” and yet, looking at q. 40 we see that "only 35% of Catholics think celibacy isn’t a factor in the abuse. In other words more Catholics surveyed think celibacy played a role in the abuse than homosexuality-yet Donohue never mentions this part of the “truth”. It was cherrypicking, pure and simple.

The majority of these same Catholics in questions 14 and 15 indicated that they believed the Vatican was “out of touch” with the needs of Catholics today, while their local priest was “in touch” with those needs.

Finally, what were some of the ways they indicated the “out of touch/in touch” dichotomy?

Questions 16-18 show that of Catholics surveyed:

• 2/3 believe that priests should be allowed to marry
• 59% believe that women should be ordained as priests; and
• 77% believe that someone who doesn’t believe in the authority of the Pope can be a good Catholic

If these are the people Bill Donohue wants to get his “truth” from, then its clear he’ll take any scrap of positive news and slant it to try and promote his spin. Previous Catholic League publications have made it clear he doesn’t consider such people holding such views “real” Catholics-to embrace them now for a few statistics is indicative of an “any port in a storm” mentality.

IMO, Catholics are better served by reading the figures and seeing them as what they are-the opinions of those who were surveyed. Some answers you may agree with and others you may disagree with, but recognizing that they don’t “prove” anything is a better approach than trying to cherrypick in a dog’s breakfast of opinion questions.

Thumper’s Mother.Thumper’s Mother.Thumper’s Mother.Thumper’s Mother.There-I feel much better.

 

[yellowantphil]

Not forgetting the poll size. 1079.

Hardly scientific or exhaustive.

It isn’t exhaustive, but 1079 respondents is enough, believe it or not. There’s little to be gained by polling every single resident of the US if your sample is sufficiently random. It’s been a while since I took a statistics class, so I can’t provide much information off the top of my head, but in the “how the poll was conducted” link I gave above, they say that the results should be accurate to about +/- 5%. Double that if you’re skeptical, but even with a 10% error, there are a lot of interesting results in the poll.

For example:

• Catholics view Pope BXVI much more favorably than they did last month (question 10), as the press release in the first post said. It does sound like a backlash against so much negative press lately.
• A solid majority of both Catholics and non-Catholics believe that child sex abuse is just as common outside the Church as inside it (question 25).
• A slim majority of non-Catholics and about 80% of Catholics have at least some confidence that the Vatican will make the necessary changes to prevent abuse in the future (question 34).

Overall, I think the poll results warrant cautious optimism in terms of the Church’s public image for the future.

 

[Dale_M]

Bill Donohue is either statistically illiterate or intentionally sought to deceive others with this press release (thanks to yellowantphil for the complete data).

Donohue’s job is to defend the Catholic Church. Rather than trying deceive anyone, I think he was simply trying to put a good spin on the story.

But rather than a “backlash” of support for the Pope as Donohue claimed, the survey suggests that support has simply returned to its normal level. Four years ago, 40% of Catholics thought he was doing a good job. Then, earlier this year, it was down to 27%. Now, it is back up to 43%.

I think a reasonable explanation is that, earlier this year when the onslaught of reports came out, people were dismayed. But after a couple weeks, they decided it wasn’t as bad as being put forward. The change is not exactly a backlash of support, just a return to normal - more of a shrug than a surge.

 

[rlg94086]

Bill Donohue is either statistically illiterate or intentionally sought to deceive others with this press release (thanks to yellowantphil for the complete data).

You may want to reconsider your signature line: “If you can’t say something nice about someone…”

 

[Soutane]

You may want to reconsider your signature line: “If you can’t say something nice about someone…”

Thumper’s Mother.

 

[rlg94086]

Thumper’s Mother.

Haha…I was wondering what your post was about. All I could think was “what’s Thumper’s mother’s name…is it something insulting?” I didn’t make the connection with the sig line…

 

[JReducation]

My question is why was it necessary to do this survey? What good does it serve? How is this a public service that the media is to provide for the community?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Catherine_S]

Not forgetting the poll size. 1079.

Hardly scientific or exhaustive.

!

 

[Soutane]

My question is why was it necessary to do this survey? What good does it serve? How is this a public service that the media is to provide for the community?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Maybe a little good news is something beleagured and put upon Catholics need?We’re not all aesthetes.Why don’t you pose your question to the poll takers.Surely you don’t want to be perceived as raining on one’s parade?

 

[Non_Serviam]

Not forgetting the poll size. 1079.

Hardly scientific or exhaustive.

True it’s not exhaustive, but I imagine they worked hard to calulate a good sample-excepting the landline bias mentioned earlier.

I just wish they had put the same effort into wording some of the questions.

Thumper’s Mother.Thumper’s Mother.Thumper’s Mother.Thumper’s Mother.There-I feel much better.

I apologize for upsetting you-I bit my tongue for the longest time before responding (at least it felt like the longest time) but there are some who consider Donohue to have some sort of credibility so I couldn’t let such a poor analysis go. Sorry.

Double that if you’re skeptical, but even with a 10% error, there are a lot of interesting results in the poll.

For example:

• Catholics view Pope BXVI much more favorably than they did last month (question 10), as the press release in the first post said. It does sound like a backlash against so much negative press lately.
• A solid majority of both Catholics and non-Catholics believe that child sex abuse is just as common outside the Church as inside it (question 25).
• A slim majority of non-Catholics and about 80% of Catholics have at least some confidence that the Vatican will make the necessary changes to prevent abuse in the future (question 34).

Overall, I think the poll results warrant cautious optimism in terms of the Church’s public image for the future.

It does appear that there are some positive points.Personally I think the removal of some of the bishops implicated in covering up abuse as well as the media stories clearing Benedict XVI went a long way to restoring confidence. Beyond that the 3 points I would think the church should take from this are:

1. Q. 3 9 shows that 59% of Catholics don’t feel they have enough information to answer a question on whether the Bishops are enforcing the 2002 regulations-that seems like a great opportunity for the Bishops to provide information and further raise confidence.
2. For a large percentage of the Catholics surveyed their Catholicism is centered on their relationship with their local priest and not the Vatican-that would be useful to remember in future whether for teaching doctrine or communicating information.
3. There needs to be a clear, simple, memorable explanation of points like celibacy and no women priests/papal authority that can be delivered by local pastors if the belief numbers in this survey are going to come more in line with official Catholic teaching. Someone should dig out the old Archbishop Sheen videos for examples of how to do this.

Donohue’s job is to defend the Catholic Church. Rather than trying deceive anyone, I think he was simply trying to put a good spin on the story

I don’t think they are getting any bang for their buck if cherrypicking this survey is the best he can do-especially after repeated comments that the NYT isn’t a good source of information. Again Archbishop Sheen would show a better way.

You may want to reconsider your signature line: “If you can’t say something nice about someone…”

Point taken-any suggestions?

My question is why was it necessary to do this survey? What good does it serve? How is this a public service that the media is to provide for the community?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Agreed-it was simply a story generator-no real value.

 

[Soutane]

!

I might want to reconsider that thumb’s up if I were you.Have you ever studied statistical analysis or scientific poll taking at the University level-I have.I think you may find the following illuminating: surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm: libs.uga.edu/researchcentral/fastfacts/stats.html. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics
Please read the preceeding and consider if your thumb’s up is warranted.I assume the original questioning of the poll sample sizecame from Guyonthestreet but I can’t be sure as I have him on “ignore”.

 

[ConfusedTim]

it could even be better than you think.

Many people still claim to be catholic but are never in church - in fact i know people who are aethiests in attitude but who would identify themselves as catholic if asked for a religion. Therefore if the focus was on practicing catholics the picture could be very good.

 

[OriginalJS]

Bill Donohue is either statistically illiterate or intentionally sought to deceive others with this press release (thanks to yellowantphil for the complete data).

First, we see in questions 30 and 32 that the majority believed that in the past both the Vatican and the Bishops tried to cover up the problem. This shows that all the attempted Catholic League spin around “it was different back then” and “the church just did what the psychologists told it” wasn’t believed by the majority, Catholic or not.

In questions 31 and 33 we see that the majority believe that more effort is directed toward prevention than coverup as stated in the pres release, yet in spite of this only 37% of those surveyed felt a lot of confidence that the Vatican would make the changes needed to protect children in the future. Other questions also speak to this lack of overall confidence. (q. 39 for example)

Likewise, Donohue misleads with his comments on homosexuality. He points out that “only” 37% of Catholics (q. 41) think it is not a factor in the abuse and equates this with “telling the truth” and yet, looking at q. 40 we see that "only 35% of Catholics think celibacy isn’t a factor in the abuse. In other words more Catholics surveyed think celibacy played a role in the abuse than homosexuality-yet Donohue never mentions this part of the “truth”. It was cherrypicking, pure and simple.

The majority of these same Catholics in questions 14 and 15 indicated that they believed the Vatican was “out of touch” with the needs of Catholics today, while their local priest was “in touch” with those needs.

Finally, what were some of the ways they indicated the “out of touch/in touch” dichotomy?

Questions 16-18 show that of Catholics surveyed:

• 2/3 believe that priests should be allowed to marry
• 59% believe that women should be ordained as priests; and
• 77% believe that someone who doesn’t believe in the authority of the Pope can be a good Catholic

If these are the people Bill Donohue wants to get his “truth” from, then its clear he’ll take any scrap of positive news and slant it to try and promote his spin. Previous Catholic League publications have made it clear he doesn’t consider such people holding such views “real” Catholics-to embrace them now for a few statistics is indicative of an “any port in a storm” mentality.

IMO, Catholics are better served by reading the figures and seeing them as what they are-the opinions of those who were surveyed. Some answers you may agree with and others you may disagree with, but recognizing that they don’t “prove” anything is a better approach than trying to cherrypick in a dog’s breakfast of opinion questions.

Seems to me that many Mass-attending Catholics I know have many, if not most, of the opinions reflected in the poll. Whenever the abuse issue comes up, there are always those who say priests should be allowed to marry, and express opinions in line with the poll. Few really ever say much about Benedict XVI. And, it’s true that Bill Donohue is biased - everybody knows that - it is his job as an advocate for the Church. His opinions need to be weighed like those of anyone else. Some think he does a good job; others don’t.