This split between official Catholic teachings and what people in the pews actually think doesn't surprise me in the least. We see the same thing with LGBTQ issues. The Catholic hierarchy in the United States, meaning most of the bishops who run the Church, are among the most virulently homophobic and transphobic people in the nation. But if you actually turn to the pews (like PRRI and Pew do, no pun intended) you get a completely different picture. You see that Catholic lay people are actually more likely than the general public to be progressive on LGBTQ issues.

Despite that, the Church continues to pour huge amounts of influence and parishioner money into fighting for laws, policies, and legal judgments that discriminate against LGBTQ people. In my own state of Michigan, the church has spent close to 10 million dollars just in the last 3 years fighting against a law that would make it illegal to discriminate against LGBTQ people in employment.

So we see the same thing with abortion. It's not a Catholic people issue. It's a Catholic Church issue. And when I say Church, I'm talking about a couple dozen elderly priests at the top of the Church, old men with extraordinarily regressive views and the institutional power to direct massive resources to impose those views.