Poll: No church wedding for 50% of Catholics

MANILA, Philippines – More than 50 percent of Filipino Catholics are not married in churches, according to a nationwide survey conducted recently by a Catholic-run radio station.

Sociology professor Clifford Sorita said yesterday that the Radio Veritas “Truth Survey” showed that the unions of a majority of Filipino couples were not blessed in churches.

The survey questioned 2,500 respondents from 85 archdioceses and dioceses covering 17 regions for the topic “The Filipino Catholicity.” The survey has a plus/minus 2 percent margin of error.

The survey results were released yesterday coinciding with the launching of the Year of Faith of the Catholic Church.

Survey results showed that 50.2 percent of the respondents had no answer (NA) when asked if they were married in church, while 7.5 percent openly said that they were not married and 42.3 percent of the couples claimed that they were married in church.

Sorita believes that 50.2 percent of those who answered “NA” were not married because they were too embarrassed to admit that they were living together out of wedlock.

He also suspects that a portion of the 7.5 percent of those who said “no” could be married in civil rites or living in one home.

Sorita clarified that in the survey, civil marriage was not considered as a marriage. -Evelyn Macairan (The Philippine Star)