Catholics in Context: Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Studying American Catholic Parishioners

Abstract

This paper describes the Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life (CPL) and its constituent surveys of parishes, pastors, parishioners, volunteer leaders, and staff. We discuss various rationales for the contextual design used in the study and the multi-method techniques of data collection the CPL employed. Sample characteristics are described and procedures for detecting nonresponse biases are presented. The study illustrates some problems associated with contextual designs in surveys of members of denominations, but emphasizes the strength of such designs for understanding the relationship between the individual and the religious community of which she is a part. The Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life (CPL) was designed to examine many topics about Catholic parishioners and their parishes (for a summary, see Gremillion and Leege) roughly 20 years after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. This emphasis on the parish was purposeful and reflected the assumption that any "church," in its American manifestation, is at one and the same time a social community, a basis for personal identity, and an ecclesiastical structure. It also accords with arguments (see Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton; Glock and Stark, 151-68; Greeley, Durkin, Shea, Tracy, and McCready, 7, 14, and especially 254; and Huckfeldt) against philosophical notions that isolate the individual from collective memory, and against a "methodological individualism" that measures beliefs and opinions as though they existed outside a social context. In Durkeimian terms, the parish often represents a 'moral community' which structures the lives of its members, formally and informally, through the norms each parish evolves (Stark, Doyle, and Kent). To study Catholics in their parish contexts required a two-phase research design and the perspectives of several academic disciplines. This paper describes the design and assesses some of its strength and limitations. Phase I of the CPL focused primarily on parish organizational characteristics; Phase II provided a more balanced perspective on parishes as communities of actors involved in religious and social activities. By contrast, much previous research has treated the attitudes, beliefs and behavior patterns of parishioners and/ or pastors as separate and relatively isolated phenomena. In some case studies, parish structures have been examined in a single parish or a few parishes (e.g., Clarke; Donovan; Fichter; Grichting; Schuyler; Young and Hughes). The CPL, however, empirically investigated all of these areas, together with liturgical practices and historical developments, in a systematic "multi-level" framework (see van den Eeden and Huttner for a description of "multi-level" research) for a variety of parishes.