Newsday commissioned a poll regarding the Pope's visit that provided results that sound awfully like the exact stance of the liberal editorial board of Newsday. Amazing.

The article on the survey quotes an ex-priest. Amazing.

The survey says Catholics do not agree with the Church on stuff. Amazing.

Haven't we heard this before?

Half of those responding to the poll are Catholic and half are non-Catholic. Of the Catholics:

"Some 69 percent think priests should be allowed to marry, 71 percent think women should be allowed to be priests and 77 percent think laypeople should play a greater role in the church."

Of course, with the catechetics, liberal leadership, and seminary teaching the way it was for most of the 70's and 80's and 90's this is not surprising. I would bet if you surveyed 1,000 Catholics most would not be able to give the theological reasoning behind the discipline of celibacy, the male priesthood, or the roles of lay people in the Church. This just means the Church has still more work to do undoing the damage done of the past 30 years.

This survey is just a local example of the typically shoddy work reporters will do for the Pope's visit. The standard treatment over the past 20 years has been the Pope is popular but Catholics do not agree on X, Y, and Z. Still, I would imagine it is not easy for journalists to cover another Papal visit, especially since Pope Benedict is not the "popular" world figure Pope JP II was. This visit especially might prove to be more "inside baseball" for Catholics. For the best coverage of the visit, check out Pope2008.com, a blog by Tim Drake at the National Catholic Register online.