The notion of "Catholic guilt" is a myth, according to a major
UK survey of religious and secular attitudes to sex at a time when the church finds itself under unprecedented scrutiny amid speculation about what impact a new pope might have on its teachings.However, while the YouGov poll detected no evidence that Catholics feel more guilty about sexual "sins" than other religious people, it found that religious people in general feel more guilt than the non-religious, with Baptists, Muslims and Pentecostals feeling the most.
When asked whether they would feel guilty about four sexual activities condemned by the Catholic church – premarital sex, extramarital sex, and the use of pornography and contraception – just 14% of Catholics said they would feel guilty about most or all of these.
The figure compared with 16% of all those who said they belong to a religion and 3% of non-religious people, according to the survey, which was commissioned for the 2013 series of the Westminster Faith Debates.
Only 9% of what the survey described as "nominal" Catholics and 12% of practising Catholics would feel guilty about using contraception, which other surveys have found to be widely used by Catholics despite their church's teachings against its use.
The polling suggested that it is on the issues of premarital sex and pornography that religious people feel more guilty than those who are non-religious.
Four times as many religious people (20%) said they would feel guilty about premarital sex as non-religious people (5%), while more than twice as many religious people (33%) said they would feel guilty about using pornography for sexual stimulation as non-religious people (15%).
The "least guilty" were identified as men who regard their own judgment or intuition as authoritative, do not identify with nor participate in a religion, and are definite about their belief that there is no God.
By contrast , the "guiltiest" were said to be women who describe themselves as religious, regard religious sources as authoritative, are active members of a religious group, and definitely believe there is a God.
A total of 4,437 adults were surveyed online from 25-30 January.