US Report: young ordinands more confident and more conservative

A new analysis of a study that claims to be the largest national survey of Catholic priests conducted in more than 50 years has found, among other things, that priests describing themselves as “progressive” are practically going “extinct” among U.S. seminary graduates, with the vast majority of young ordinands describing themselves as conservative and orthodox.

The new report highlights “several themes which have emerged from closer analysis of the quantitative data, as well as careful study of the qualitative data collected from the one-on-one interviews with priests.” The study used survey responses from 3,516 priests across 191 dioceses and eparchies in the United States.

Of note, the researchers assert that self-described “liberal” or “progressive” priests have all but disappeared from
the youngest cohorts of priests and that priests describing themselves as “conservative/orthodox” reached more than 80% among those ordained after 2020.

Source: Catholic News Agency