Recently, Pope Francis addressed the issue of climate change in an encyclical that was released in June, putting out a spiritual call to action for the world to look at its practices and question ease of the moment over long term survival on this planet. Many of his comments left many Catholics uneasy, particularly right-wing American Catholics, as it questioned the morals of many of their political values against the tenets of their faith.

The Public Religion Research Institute conducted a research survey with many American Catholics about their views of climate change ahead of the Pope’s encyclical, in partnership with the American Academy of Religion. Together, the PRRI and AAR published a story on the PRRI’s site with the five key findings that the results of their research survey made clear.

What makes the PRRI / AAR’s key findings genuinely interesting is that the piece is written in a way that focuses only on the data, resulting in an unbiased viewpoint that allows the reader to make their own conclusions as to what the cause of these findings might be. Each of the findings compare the responses from white Catholics to Hispanic Catholics, resulting in some very interesting and telling statistics about not only the views of American Catholics on climate change, but also the differences between the Hispanic and white Catholic communities in America.

The five key findings that PRRI...