Maltese agree with Church on abortion but not on contraception

An opinion survey carried out by Malta Polls on behalf of the programme Xarabank on TVM, found that the only issue which the Maltese were in disagreement with the Catholic Church was on contraception - 34.6 agreed with the Church but 59.5 per cent disagreed, with 5.9 per cent undecided.

On other issues like divorce, same-sex marriages, women priests and abortion the survey revealed concurrence with the Church, with 94 per cent, the highest, agreeing with the Church's stand on abortion.

Almost 82 per cent said they heard Mass in the last two weeks; 18.2 per cent did not attend Mass or go to church.

Just over 50 per cent of those surveyed believe that the people should choose the Archbishop of Malta.

Asked whom they would nominate as Archbishop Mercieca's successor, 60.1 per cent did not mention anyone. Of the remainder, 30.9 per cent said it should be the Vicar-General, Bishop Annetto Depasquale, who was followed by Mgr Victor Grech with 20.2 per cent.

Of those surveyed, 45.6 per cent said Mgr Mercieca, who reaches the retirement age of 75 next month, should not be reappointed; 37.3 per cent said that he should be reappointed, while the rest did not express an opinion.

However, 51.2 per cent said Mgr Mercieca was a good archbishop, and 21.9 per cent said he was very good. Those who said his performance as archbishop was neither good nor bad were 24.4 per cent; those who said it was bad or very bad totalled 2.5 per cent.