French support married priests

A survey on vocations taken of 1,000 French citizens last month (27-28 May, 2009) by the polling group La Sofre for La Croix shows that:

* 83% support ordaining married men to the priesthood (up from 69% in 1982)

* 82% support allowing priests to get married (71% in 1982)

*80% support ordaining women to the priesthood (45% in 1982)

There was no statistically significant difference between the responses of Catholics and respondents as a whole, presumably because France is still a predominantly Catholic country.

Those surveyed also consider the celibacy requirement to be the factor that most explains the decline in vocations. Among those who identified themselves as Catholics in the survey, 82% believed that the celibacy requirement explains the decline. Other factors seen as contributing to the decline:

* individualism -- cited by 71% of Catholic respondents
* the Church's position on social issues -- 69%
* living conditions of priests -- 54%