Differentiating Among Three Catholic Groups in the United States: The Role of Ethnic-Cultural and Religious-Spiritual Variables

Abstract

Catholic demographics in the United States have been shifting rapidly to such an extent that more than one third of Catholic parishes have become “multicultural.” Such a shift poses the challenge of maintaining the universal trait of the Catholic Church while adapting to the changes brought in by cultural diversity. In order to validate and further expand on the need to face and adapt to the diversity within the Catholic Church in the United States, this project examined the role of selected ethnic, cultural, religious, and spiritual variables in differentiating among three Catholic groups of European Americans, Asian Indian Americans, and Taiwanese Americans. Multivariate analysis for group differences indicated that the European Americans had higher scores on spiritual transcendence and individualism, and lower scores on exploration and resolution of ethnic identity. Taiwanese Americans scored high on collectivism. Asian Indian Americans scored lower on religious motivation than the European and Taiwanese Americans. Discriminant function analysis resulted in two discriminant functions. The first one discriminated European Americans from the other two groups, with the universality facet of spiritual transcendence and the affirmation of ethnic identity emerging as the significant contributors to the discrimination. The second function discriminated between Taiwanese American and Asian Indian American Catholics, with collectivism and religious motivation emerging as the significant contributors. These significant results, their implications for Catholic parishes, and directions for future research are discussed.