I’ve got more data from Voice of the Faithful’s survey of its membership and it confirms what I thought. The group is not at all representative of the Church at large and mainly consists of aging wealthy, white, liberal boomers.
Here’s more of the relevant data:
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60 percent of members are female.
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Almost 90 percent were born in 1965 or before. More than 40 percent were born before 1961.
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More than 65 percent are Irish, Italian, English, French, or Eastern European. Thirty-five percent fall into a category of other. (Interestingly only 13 percent are Italian, 11 percent are French, and 64 percent are Irish; the numbers don’t add up to 100 because people can be more than one ethnic heritage)
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Eighty-eight percent have college degrees and 60 percent have graduate degrees
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Seventeen percent are ordained, presumably priests and deacons
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Not unexpectedly almost 60 percent are the product of Catholic colleges
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Only 23 percent reported having more than 3 children
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Sixty-seven percent work are academics, professionals, or business executives.
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Less than a quarter have a household income under $50,000
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Again not surprisingly, almost half identify themselves as politically liberal. Another 37 percent are moderate and only 13 percent as conservative. Considering that the vast majority of Americans identify themselves as moderate, it shows again how much out of the mainstream they are.
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Similarly, 63 percent identify with the Democrats, 18 percent are independent, and only 18 percent are Republican.
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Finally, I find it just as interesting that in the question about what Catholic publications people read, all of them are liberal: America, Commonweal, and The National Catholic Reporter. Gee, why don’t they expect their members to read Catholic World Report, Crisis, or The National Catholic Register?
A couple more tidbits: only 85 percent are registered members of a parish and 22 percent said they are considering leaving the Catholic Church.
