BOOK REVIEW

American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church

William V. D’Antonio, James D. Davidson, Dean R. Hoge, and Mary L. Gautier, American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church. Lanham, Md., a Sheed and Ward book by Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, 214 pp., $24.95.

Reviewed by John Broderick, Professor of Sociology at Stonehill College

How important is the faith to today’s Catholics and how attached are they to the Church? This is a question that lay ministers, pastors, and sociologists have been trying to answer for years. Using surveys repeated every six years from 1987 to 2005, the authors of American Catholics Today compare the responses of Catholics from the “pre-Vatican II” generation to those of later years. Many of the findings--Mass attendance is down, older Catholics are more committed than younger ones, the number of mixed marriages is up, and the influence of the “Catholic ghetto” of the 1950s has diminished--will not be surprising to Call To Action members.

What is significant is the difference Catholics see between the parish community and the hierarchical institution of the Church and the distinctions they make between doctrinal beliefs and social issues involving conscience formation. Catholics see themselves as members of a local parish or community, rather than on the lowest level of a hierarchical institution. And the laity generally has favorable things to say about parish clergy. Nine out of ten say that the parish clergy does a good job, yet in the 2003 survey only four of ten respondents could name their local bishop.

The laity also makes a distinction on the matter of beliefs. There is consent on such theological beliefs as Jesus’ resurrection, the sacraments and devotion to Mary as the Mother of God. Support declines, though, on issues where Catholics are more likely to follow their own reasoning. Church leaders are less likely to be seen as the appropriate source of moral authority on such issues as abortion, the death penalty and celibate male clergy. Many Catholics, especially younger ones, consider themselves to still be members of the Church even though they are not as attached to all that it teaches. Catholics who came of age after Vatican II are more individualistic and “more inclined to think of themselves as spiritual but not religious.”

So, what is to be done? Is there a call to action here?

The authors are careful to stay close to their data. The book does not end with a sermon directed at the hierarchy, but it does have practical suggestions, such as appealing to people’s most central values and self-interests. The authors say, “More effort should be put into supporting small Christian communities, such as study groups, faith-sharing groups, and prayer groups.” They predict that Church commitment will probably drop by as much as one-third, but end on a positive note, highlighting the fact that “more than 30,000 lay ecclesial ministers now serve on parish staffs, many of them assisting with parish management tasks.”

This research was sponsored by CARA, The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, and as sociologists often say, “there is need for further research.” In the meantime this research suggests positive action to be taken by both clergy and laity.

You can contact John Broderick at Broderick@Stonehill.edu

Future book reviews

Beginning with this issue, we welcome Tara Dix Osborne as book review editor. Under her guidance, book reviews will appear regularly in both CTA News and ChurchWatch. Tara is a freelance writer, editor, and photographer living in Chicago. From 1998 to 2001, she worked at CTA as assistant editor of publications and coordinator of the annual conference. After that she spent five years as an editor at U.S. Catholic magazine. She can be reached at tara@taradix.com.