The ongoing conservative turn in the American Catholic priesthood

Abstract

Surveys of Catholic priests in the United States dating back to the 1980s have shown that newer priests—and the priesthood in the aggregate—are becoming more conservative on moral, ecclesial, political, and theological issues. The present study examined whether this long-observed conservative shift has continued up to the present day using data from two surveys of Catholic priests: a 2002 Los Angeles Times survey of priests and the 2020–2021 Survey of American Catholic Priests, which largely replicated the former. Comparisons of means across surveys and analyses based on decade of ordination both revealed that Catholic priests in the United States are increasingly conservative on issues of moral belief, attitudes concerning who should and should not qualify for ordination, as well as politics and theology. Regression models demonstrated that having been ordained more recently was consistently associated with holding more conservative beliefs, net of other factors. More religiously observant priests, captured by frequency of praying the Divine Office, were more likely to be conservative on every question asked. The major exception to the conservative shift are priests self-reporting as entirely homosexual, who tend to be more liberal than heterosexual priests on a range of topics.