Catholic Boomers Are More Liberal Than Millennials

While millennials are generally seen as a more liberal bunch than their baby boomer elders, the opposite is true in the Catholic community, according to a new Pew Research report.

Catholics aged 50 and older were more likely than their younger counterparts to say their church should allow female priests and contraception. The group was also more likely to say priests should be allowed to marry than Catholics aged 18 to 49.

The report discovered that while 75 percent of U.S. Catholics view Pope Francis favorably, the group was a little bit more divided when it came to their specific views on practices within the church.

The survey’s findings, based on responses from more than 2,000 Catholics in February, differed from the church’s official stance. Historically, the Vatican has opposed contraception and saw it as in conflict with God’s will. The church also ruled against the recognition of gay marriage, although Pope Francis has been more friendly to the LGBTQ+ community in recent years. Additionally, the church has outlawed female priests and restricts its priests from getting married.

Across the board, Catholics are leaning more liberally than they have historically, with 83 percent of those surveyed wanting the church to allow contraception to prevent pregnancy. Similarly, 69 percent wanted priests to be able to be married, and 64 percent supported women being able to be priests.

A little bit less, 54 percent of Catholics, said the church should recognize same-sex marriage.

When you look at the responses by age, however, an unorthodox pattern emerges. Older Catholics were more likely to support those ideas than their younger counterparts.

When it came to the birth control question, 85 percent of Catholic boomers supported this, compared to just 80 percent of 18- to 49-year-olds. And when it came to priests getting married, the difference was even more stark: 73 percent of the older group agreed with this, compared to just 65 percent of younger Catholics.

More older Catholics also supported women becoming priests 66 percent of the time, compared to just 61 percent of the younger group.

The only issue where the reverse was true was gay marriage, where the groups supported the church recognizing gay marriage at roughly the same rates, 56 percent of the younger group and 53 percent of the older cohort.

Thomas Plante, a professor of psychology and religious studies at Santa Clara University in California, said older Catholics leaning liberal actually reflects the time when they grew up.

“Many older Catholics who grew up with the hope and promise of the second Vatican Council held during the first part of the 1960s tend to be more progressive and hopeful with the promised and implied reforms that came out of that Council,” Plante told Newsweek.

During the second Vatican Council, the church looked to give women a more equal role as men, but Plante said these efforts were curtailed by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.

“Pope Francis has been more progressive on these fronts and these people have been more hopeful that we will see progress on these fronts,” Plante said.

Highly conservative Catholics also tend to get more media attention than their more progressive counterparts, Plante said, meaning the modern perception of Catholics might not all be rooted in reality.

Tim Rosenberger, a Cleveland pastor who is now a fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, said the survey probably also reflects a difference in how younger and older generations define religion.

Much of the 50-plus Catholic group could include those who consider themselves “culturally” Catholic as opposed to the younger generation, who are more likely to identify with Catholicism’s specific teachings even though many of that generation have fled religion altogether.

Another 2019 Pew Research found that 26 percent of Americans identified as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” a significant jump from 17 percent in 2009. This was also concentrated among younger Americans, so young Catholics might have a higher religiosity than their elders.

Another report from the Catholic Project in 2023 discovered that young U.S. Catholic priests were also becoming more theologically traditional and politically conservative than their older counterparts.

“At the same time, many young conservative Christians, including those raised in evangelical households, have converted to Catholicism,” Rosenberger told Newsweek. “These ‘new Catholics’ reflect a different cultural and political position and are drawn to Catholicism precisely because of its teaching on gender and sex.”