“The portion of new priests who see themselves as politically ‘liberal’ or theologically ‘progressive’ has been steadily declining since the Second Vatican Council and has now all but vanished,” according a national study conducted by the Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America.
While 44% of priests ordained in the 2020s describe themselves as politically moderate, “a full 85% of [this] youngest cohort describes itself as ‘conservative/orthodox’ or ‘very conservative/orthodox’ theologically, with only 14% (the smallest percentage of any cohort) describing themselves as ‘middle-of-the-road.’ Theologically ‘progressive’ and “very progressive’ priests once made up 68% of new ordinands. Today, that number has dwindled almost to zero.”