RJN: 6.01.06 Here’s a happy spin…

Here’s a happy spin. The headline in Catholic New York , “The Nation’s Largest Catholic Newspaper,” reads: “Poll Says Catholics Not Swayed by ‘Da Vinci Code.’” That’s good news, if you don’t read the story. The national survey was done by Moyne College/Zogby/Catholic Trends and found that, of Catholics familiar with The Da Vinci Code , two-thirds “did not believe the book’s premise that leaders of the Catholic Church understand the truth as portrayed in the novel but are suppressing it.” We are reassured that “just 12 percent said they believed the book rather than church officials,” while another 21 percent said they were unsure whom to believe. Men (78 percent) are more likely than women (58 percent) not to believe that the Church is suppressing the truth of Dan Brown’s book. One notes that, if general reading patterns hold, women are more likely than men to have read the book. In any event, Catholic New York invites us to be cheered by the finding that only 33 percent of Catholic adults in the United States think that the faith as taught by the Church is or may be a hoax perpetrated by a corrupt church leadership. And to think that there are still people who question the “new catechesis” that has been so manifestly effective over these last several decades.

Massachusetts demanded that Catholic Charities place adoptive children with same-sex couples, and, in response, Catholic Charities opted out of the important work of adoption. In the June/July issue of First Things , Gregory Popcak explains what went wrong and why it is both courageous and compassionate to insist that adoptive children have both a mother and a father. Isn’t it time for you to subscribe to First Things ?