18 percent of US Catholics say they’re also evangelical… Religious identity is complicated — The share of Catholics who said that they were born-again/evangelical was about 10% in 2010. In 2020, it reached an all-time high. 18% of Catholics say that they are evangelical now. https://religioninpublic.blog/2019/07/18/the-curious-case-of-born-again-catholics/
I see no tension here. The term 'Evangelical' is broad. The roman church is Catholic. The members within the church are Evangelisers. I would intuit far more than 18 percent of Roman Catholics could be classed as 'Evangelical', but are probably wary of the term for the connotation you associate with it. Perhaps a small minority of those 18 percent are just genuinely confused.
Does Evangelical have any real meaning anymore? I know a few older figures in the movement are gallantly trying to hold onto some concrete definition but every Pew and Barna poll that comes out shows the people on the ground (because they aren't in the pews very much) are slipping deeper into a mire of Biblical ignorance that is conflated and intertwined with folk sayings and Republican politics. Half or more of these 'born again' people have never received water baptism. All this statistic likely represents is the influence of the Charismatic movement on the Catholic church.
Interesting question. Maye it doesn't. Webster's Dictionary says: 1 : of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels 2 : protestant 3 : emphasizing salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual 4a capitalized : of or relating to the Evangelical Church in Germany b often capitalized : of, adhering to, or marked by fundamentalism : fundamentalist c often capitalized : low church 5 : marked by militant or crusading zeal : evangelistic This range of meanings covers such a wide swath, it's hard to know what a given person means when they use the word. Personally, when I say "evangelical" I'm usually picturing #5: evangelistic; but I am quite certain that I'm in the small minority, both on this forum and at my parish.
Actually, thinking it through more thoroughly I agree with that. There 'militant' can easily be misunderstood to mean 'aggressive', which of course the church is not called to be, just resolute in purpose and loyal to Christ. So, yes 3 gets it for me with a bit of 5, (as long as doing the work of an evangelist does not also involve being totally 'Evangelical', with all that that normally involves). Also 'crusading' is a dirty word when historically linked to what went on in 'The Crusades', which to a large extent were as far removed from 'the work of evangelism' as it is possible to be, and more associated with plunder, butchery and mass murder than Jesus Christ would have cared to ever allow. .
I'm also a #5 in the sense of 'evangelistic,' but it's not the meaning that almost everyone has when saying the word 'evangelical'... Typically the term refers to a low-church revivalist theology, isn't it?
I know quite a few "evangelical" Catholics and most use the term evangelical to mean spirit filled, preferring contemporary worship music, or in some cases to indicate a preference for the Ordinary form mass over the Latin mass.