(In Lithuania, however, 27% of Catholics did not respond to the question.)
In Eastern Europe, acceptance was weaker, with roughly half or fewer of Catholics saying that homosexuality should be accepted by society in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania. Other countries around the world where most Catholics said society should be accepting of homosexuality included Spain (91%), Australia (81%), the Philippines (80%) and South Africa (62%). That was the case in Canada, where almost nine-in-ten Catholics (87%) took this view, as well as in Argentina (80%), the U.S. In the Americas, majorities of Catholics in several countries said society should be accepting of homosexuality. (While the survey covered 34 countries, samples of Catholics were large enough to analyze in 22 of those countries.) When it comes to Catholics’ views about homosexuality in general, a global survey conducted in 2019 also paints a mixed picture. Most nations in Central and Eastern Europe do not allow legal same-sex unions of any kind. Nine-in-ten Catholics in Ukraine said same-sex marriage should be illegal, as did 66% of Catholics in Hungary and 62% of Catholics in Poland. On the other hand, in almost all of the Central and Eastern European countries surveyed by the Center in 20, most Catholics oppose same-sex marriage.
In Switzerland and Italy – which allow civil unions but not marriage for gay couples – 76% and 57% of Catholics, respectively, said in 2017 that they support gay marriage. Same-sex marriage is legal in most of the Western European countries surveyed. Here are the questions used, along with responses, and the survey’s methodology. The term “homosexuality,” while sometimes considered anachronistic in the current era, is the most applicable and easily translatable term to use when asking this question across societies and languages and has been used in other cross-national studies, including the World Values Survey. The total sample size of Catholics across these countries was 10,394 of 24,444 respondents. 14, 2019, across 22 of 34 countries where Catholic samples were large enough for analysis: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, the Philippines, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Responses about whether society should be accepting of homosexuality came from a global survey conducted from May 13 to Aug.
The sample size in this survey was 288 Catholics. The views of Catholics in the United States about same-sex marriage come from a phone survey conducted March 20 to 25, 2019.
The total sample size of Catholics across these countries was 6,375. Catholic samples were large enough for analysis in nine of these countries: Belarus, Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine. The views of Catholics in Central and Eastern Europe about same-sex marriage come from a survey conducted from June 2015 to July 2016 through face-to-face interviews in 18 countries. The Center’s survey of Slovakia – including 954 Catholic respondents – was fielded alongside the countries in Western Europe. The total sample size of Catholics across these countries was 10,027. Catholic samples were large enough for analysis in 11 of these countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The views of Catholics in Western Europe about same-sex marriage come from a phone survey of 15 countries conducted from April to August 2017. The data in this analysis comes from four different Pew Research Center surveys. In the wake of Pope Francis’ recent comment about same-sex civil unions, Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand what Catholics around the world think about legal recognition for same-sex couples and homosexuality in general.