Seventy percent of married U.S. Catholics were either wed in a Catholic church or have had their marriages blessed by the church, according the survey by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
A majority of Catholics - 55 percent - said their opinions about marriage have been at least ''somewhat'' informed by church teaching.
Most accurately described church teachings about the sacrament of marriage, including that the church does not consider a civil marriage after divorce to be sacramentally valid. However, 76 percent of adult Catholics also said divorce is acceptable in some cases.
Misconceptions also were discovered. The survey found six in 10 Catholics have heard that a non-Catholic spouse must promise to have the couple's children raised Catholic, which has not been the case since a change in canon law in 1983.
- The Associated Press
Survey: Most evangelical leaders support Iraq war
WASHINGTON - A survey of evangelical Christian leaders this month found a majority support the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but almost as many expressed serious reservations.
Most of those who responded to the National Association of Evangelicals' survey back the war and want the United States to ''stay until the job is done.''
Each month, the NAE chooses topics to measure attitudes of its board of directors, which includes top executives of 60 denominations and representatives of mission groups, universities, publishers and churches.
''Most evangelicals in America subscribe to the theological position called 'just war' theory, that it is morally justifiable to go to war under certain conditions,'' said Leith Anderson, a Minnesota pastor and president of the NAE. ''However, there is also a strong evangelical voice in the 'peace church' tradition that opposes all war.''
Some who considered the Iraq invasion ''a mistake based on faulty intelligence'' said leaving now is wrong.
- The Associated Press
Billy Graham is recovering from surgery
Evangelist Billy Graham has ''rested well'' after undergoing an elective procedure on Wednesday to relieve pressure in his brain.
Graham, 89, underwent the procedure at Mission Hospitals in Asheville, N.C., near his home in Montreat.
The evangelist has hydrocephalus, or a buildup of fluid on the brain that can cause symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease. In recent days, he had experienced more of those symptoms. Doctors determined that a valve for a shunt implanted in 2000 needed to be replaced to continue regulation of the pressure on Graham's brain.
