to think that the Catholic Church is deliberately taking the piss with this questionnaire?

[Slatecross]

Accessible to your average left footer?

With regard to the one child policy, you're not really looking at the bigger picture are you? There is a shortage of children, not just because it was a one child policy, but because the female population in many rural areas was effectively culled.

Logically though, it has helped keep population explosion under control, and for periods of time, there is nothing wrong with a non gender biased policy.
As for the Catholic Church policies on contraception etc. I'm sorry, but it's old fashioned, and still thought of as a way of controlling women. I say this as a lapsed catholic.

They havent even JUSTIFIED THE TEXT FFFS

This questionnaire actually does reflect the Catholic Church's teachings worldwide. Just because we are in a country where many catholics ignore some of these teachings, does not take away from this fact.

According to the BBC, the questionnaire is the result of the Pope's wishes and is aimed at all Catholics not just the clergy

"The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales was the first in the world to put the survey online, and is encouraging all Catholics to respond by a 30 November deadline."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24951677

This Pope is popular with progressives. It is interesting to try and understand what is going on and why it is happening.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/15/atheists-pope-francis-obama-liberal-voice-change

Jeez - higher degree, Catholic education etc.... I was scared off by Q1! Is this media misreporting? Clearly aimed at the clergy!

Nom I will also try and do my bit so that the views of rational, modern Catholics (married to Protestant, two children, detests what has gone on) will be heard.

ljkk postd an interesting article that implied that it was misreporting

protectthepope.com/?p=9040

A progressive leftist paper called Il Fatto Quotidiano implied it was unprecedented and Bishop Hines (I don't know who he is, is he a progressive?) also seemed to imply similar. Then you have the progressive BBC and the progressive Guardian sort of implying similar too.

This may be wishful thinking or misreporting on the part of the progressives to try and raise expectations and force the Church's hand, or it may actually be what the Pope intends.

Either way, it is very interesting.

I have just filled it in online, with some frank comments about the design of the survey questionnaire. Actually, I was frank throughout. No way ai was putting my name and email on it! {coward}

Our priest said this morning it was for everybody but acknowledged some of it was not easy, said just do what you can.

Being someone married to a Roman Catholic I'm just glad the Vatican is even asking. There are plenty of great RCs in the pews, but the institutional hierarchy has been institutionally corrupt and arrogant for.. oh... centuries now I think.

All power to Pope Francis.

I'm disappointed at how inaccessible it is.

I had a link to it through school news letter.

I did not complete it.

havent read all thethread - but i am answsering the questionnaire Q1 with pretty much the OPs first post

I love "cohabitation ad experimentum". I just googled it as I had never heard the expression before, and all the results were related to this survey. Apparently it means "a way of trying out marriage before making the commitment", which we probably could have guessed.

Speaking as an outsider, it seems clear that the church has a massive problem, which is that the world has moved on, while it hasn't. People - even Catholics - don't care any more about sex before marriage, or contraception, or divorce, or homosexuality. They just don't regard them as moral issues. And Catholics have stopped being frightened that they'll go to hell if they don't obey the church - as far as I can tell, most Christians in this country don't even believe in hell any more. So how is the church going to reassert its historical authority? It's going to be tricky, I reckon.

done.

i am utterly astounded

thank you for posting the link, i did look for it but couldnt find it

i ended the questionnaire with this

"I shouldn't have to use google to fill out a questionnaire"

I'm not a Catholic. I'm surprised that the Vatican didn't engage a PR company to create a professional, accessible, easily-translated questionnaire for such a huge project.

I wonder who actually wrote it.

Please, please do fill in as much of it as you possibly can. I think they really need us lay people to tell them what we think, and bluntly. Otherwise it will be weighted towards clergy and bishops.

Frankly, this kind of opportunity doesn't come up often. I am annoyed at how they have done this. And yes, why not actually get someone sensible to come up with the questions for lay people?

survey monkey link - maybe easier to complete

The cannon fodder stopped breeding long ago and the powers that be are furious/scared.

it is deliberately obtuse and impenetrable so that only those that they want responses from and have coached will answer in a way that will get reviewed. The bottom line is - it doesn't matter what the questions catholics need to make it clear that the current way the church views all sorts of things has to be sorted out. Its views on homosexuality, contraception need to be properly reviewed - and not just through the monocular vision of the church elite that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo or those that carry very human prejudice and interpret the bible to support them. It's time for a real debate, it's time to acknolwedge that homosexuality is biological not a choice and that love can exist outside the mould the church has set for us.

and with that she gets off her soapbox, and succumbs to the strong painkillers and goes to bed.

How that survey got released is beyond me - what poorly worded questions and frankly how very very odd!

My dad, a former Catholic from a long line of Catholics, married my mum, a non-Catholic. Would their marriage be considered 'irregular'?

The way it's written isn't a questionnaire at all they are asking questions in a very specific way to elicit a specific response, more like an exam than asking for an opinion. I.e. The first question is started with "describe how..........." which is not asking for an opinion on changes that could be made against what's working, it's asking for a report. Am more usual and useful starting position in opinion questionnaires is an opening of "how could this be..........."