Hoenes del Pinal, Eric. 2022. Guarded by Two Jaguars: A Catholic Parish Divided by Language and Faith

Reviewed by: American Parishes: Remaking Local Catholicism ed. by Gary J. Adler Jr., Tricia C. Bruce and Brian Starks James C. Cavendish American Parishes: Remaking Local Catholicism. Edited by Gary J. Adler, Jr., Tricia C. Bruce, and Brian Starks. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019. 224 pp. $30.00. American Parishes is a well-organized, thought-provoking book that calls for a renewed focus on the sociology of Catholic parishes. Until recently, the field of congregational studies, as these authors argue, has focused primarily on Protestant congregations without really recognizing the distinctive features of Catholic parishes. This book successfully brings the insights of congregational studies to bear on Catholic parish life in the United States, and in so doing, helps to establish a research agenda for scholars interested in the sociological dynamics involved in American Catholic parishes today. It is a welcome resource for sociologists of religion, college professors who wish to expand their students’ supplemental reading materials, and church practitioners who seek to familiarize themselves with the key issues and trends in Catholic parish life today. [End Page 85] Part I of the book, “Seeing Parishes Through a Sociological Lens,” summarizes the history of the sociological study of parishes in the United States and highlights the various ways that Catholic parishes are distinct from Protestant congregations, primarily in terms of size, the use of small ministry groups, the availability of clergy, clerical authority, expectations of lay leadership and participation, and congregational diversity. These differences, according to Nancy Ammerman, author of the book’s second chapter, provide the bases “where the study of parishes may genuinely plow new (conceptual) ground” (59), making parishes “fertile ground for examining local religious culture” (62). The chapters that form Part II “Parish Trends,” Part III “Race, Class, and Diversity in the Parish,” and Part IV “Young Catholics In (and Out) of Parishes,” present insights and findings stemming from the contributing authors’ own empirical research into specific aspects of American Catholic parishes. They discuss trends in American Catholics’ parish-going behavior, generational variation in attachment to parishes, and variation within and across parishes in terms of race, ethnicity, class, and region. In Mark Gray’s chapter, for instance, readers learn that although the percentage of Americans who identify as Catholics has remained fairly stable over time, there is a clear downward trend in the percentage who would be regarded as “core” Catholics (i.e., those who are highly involved in their parishes), and that that percentage is not as high is one might think. In Kathleen Graces-Foley’s chapter, we learn that many of the young adult Catholics she studied engage in parish shopping or parish hopping and rarely register at a parish. According to Graces-Foley, these young Catholics, rather than regarding a particular parish as their “home parish,” prefer instead to use parishes as hubs for their participation in various parachurch organizations, transparish social groups, and online social networks. These specific findings, which reveal a declining significance of the parish in the lives of many Catholics, particularly young Catholics, will raise questions among readers about why it is important to take a renewed focus on the sociology of Catholic parishes. Fortunately, the authors provide compelling explanations, on both empirical and theoretical grounds, for why sociologists should continue to examine Catholic parishes today. In Chapter 3, for instance, Gary Adler provides evidence of important changes taking place among Catholic parishes—members and leaders are becoming older and more Hispanic, parish cultures are becoming more theologically conservative and politicized, and participation boundaries for women and gays and lesbians are increasing. These dynamics matter because, as the authors argue, [End Page 86] Catholic parishes occupy and remain “the embedded middle of American Catholicism” (231). They are the meso-level settings in which individual Catholics come together to form community and “create a local identity within a global Catholic Church.” As the point where Catholicism from “below” meets Catholicism from “above,” parishes are an important object of study precisely because they reveal where microlevel actions do not always match macro-level pronouncements. In sum, American Parishes: Remaking Local Catholicism is an excellent new addition to the literature on American Catholicism. It presents a convincing argument for...

This article builds upon data from the National Study of Catholic Parishes with Hispanic Ministry to examine two questions: (1) what are the profiles of Catholic parishes with Hispanic Ministry? (2) How are various dimensions of parish life associated with the integration of Hispanic communities in Catholic congregations? We identify profiles of parishes with the Hispanic ministry and use ANOVA analyses to compare differences across these profiles. We then develop multilevel regression models of parishes nested within dioceses to predict integration of Hispanic communities into Catholic parish life. We observe great variation in the integration of Hispanic communities in Catholic parishes and identify liturgical, social, civic, and leadership factors as associated with greater parish integration, controlling for the parish size and the percentage of Hispanic families in the parish. We conclude that Catholic parishes and ministries that encourage and develop lay leadership may foster integration of Hispanic communities in parish life.

The Catholic parish is arguably the most fundamental unit of territory in Ireland. Over 1,300 of these units cover the entire land surface of the island. Their history and development tells the story of the accretion of institutional power by the Roman Catholic Church. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Catholic parish became a means of organisation for an institutional church struggling with prohibition only later to become a key unit of social and political activity. Parishes are a vitally important way in which local identity in Ireland is connected with place. However, despite widespread use, the cartographical boundaries of Catholic parishes are not widely known. The boundaries have not been widely used on maps. This paper outlines the results of a project that attempted the initial digitisation of Catholic parish boundaries to make them more available. 
 In the first part of the paper, we outline the historical and geographical significance of the Catholic parish in Ireland. It is argued that the Catholic parish is both a social and a cartographic representation. The parish materialises a sense of place for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In the second part of the paper, we report on the work of a project to digitally represent the boundaries of the Catholic parish and diocesan boundaries. It involved six years of work across two universities and a number of other state and non-state actors. More than a technical task, the cartographical representation of digital parish boundaries uncovered a series of local contestations. These contestations point to what are conceptualised here as a tidal geography: an understanding of the meaning of place that recedes and advances. The paper concludes with some challenges to the process of digitisation and a brief discussion of tidal geographies.

The Catholic parish is arguably the most fundamental unit of territory in Ireland. Over 1,300 of these units cover the entire land surface of the island. Their history and development tells the story of the accretion of institutional power by the Roman Catholic Church. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the Catholic parish became a means of organisation for an institutional church struggling with prohibition only later to become a key unit of social and political activity. Parishes are a vitally important way in which local identity in Ireland is connected with place. However, despite widespread use, the cartographical boundaries of Catholic parishes are not widely known. The boundaries have not been widely used on maps. This paper outlines the results of a project that attempted the initial digitisation of Catholic parish boundaries to make them more available. In the first part of the paper, we outline the historical and geographical significance of the Catholic parish in Ireland. It is argued that the Catholic parish is both a social and a cartographic representation. The parish materialises a sense of place for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In the second part of the paper, we report on the work of a project to digitally represent the boundaries of the Catholic parish and diocesan boundaries. It involved six years of work across two universities and a number of other state and nonstate actors. More than a technical task, the cartographical representation of digital parish boundaries uncovered a series of local contestations. These contestations point to what are conceptualised here as a tidal geography: an understanding of the meaning of place that recedes and advances. The paper concludes with some challenges to the process of digitisation and a brief discussion of tidal geographies.

Studying Catholic Parishes: Moving beyond the Parochial Mary Ellen Konieczny33 My interest in the sociological study of Catholic parishes is both scholarly and practical, based in two very different professional experiences that together make me something of an “inside-outsider” to this world. I introduce my comments on the value of studying parishes by discussing these two experiences, since each orients me differently vis-a-vis American Catholicism and its parishes, and they inform each other. The first lens is institutional, and reflects an “insider” role in the Catholic Church. Before my graduate studies in sociology, I pursued and received a Master of Divinity degree and worked in the Archdiocese of Chicago for nine years. Seven of these years were spent working in Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s administration, where I had the opportunity to visit and/or work closely with between one-third and one-half of the archdiocese’s parishes (which then numbered over 350). During these years I got to know Chicago’s parishes well. But more than this, immersed in the world of archdiocesan administration, I was exposed to the structure, networks, and politics of a large and complex bureaucracy that was often tightly coupled with its parishes. The second lens is rooted in my graduate training in sociology at the University of Chicago. When I entered graduate school, my mentors encouraged me to study Catholicism. Consciously choosing an “outsider” status that I didn’t have previously, I saw the parish ethnographies I conducted for my dissertation research as not only a way to contribute to sociology, but also as useful to American Catholics. The result was my first book, The Spirit’s Tether: Family, Work, and Religion among American Catholics.34 In that book, I sought to understand why cultural conflicts surrounding the family (such as those over abortion, homosexuality, and women’s roles in church and society) are so resonant among contemporary Catholics, and how parishes may contribute to moral polarization in larger civic and ecclesial arenas. I still see this as a crucial challenge for U.S. Catholics [End Page 13] as well as for American society writ large. But just as important, Chicago’s internationally-oriented environment trained my scholarly gaze in a way that is surprisingly compatible with Catholic thought: it directed me toward the variability and interconnectedness of the larger human community, seen through local manifestations of the Catholic Church. These twin perspectives—as both insider and outsider—shape the way I think about Catholic parishes and inform the comments that follow. Studying Catholic Parishes—Beyond the Parochial? “Why should sociologists, and other scholars, pay attention to Catholic parishes today?” is an important question for those of us who study Catholicism. I think it is particularly important because—like any empirical topic we are invested in—we may find ourselves inadvertently forgetting that, because many of our colleagues may not be as captivated by the subject matter as we are, we may actually need to work to convince them of the significance of what can be learned by engaging parish studies. In fact, the “why” of studying parishes is perhaps especially pertinent today in the contemporary United States, where the decline in religious affiliation, including among Catholics, along with the recent accelerated rise in the percentage of religious “nones,”35 has been interpreted by some as rendering religion generally, and Catholicism in particular, as lacking relevance in contemporary Western societies. Thus, the “why” question ultimately does scholars of American Catholicism a service, because it has the potential—perhaps ironically, given that we are talking about parishes—to move us beyond the parochial. What do I mean by parochialism here? Poulson and Campbell, in assessing parochialism in the sociology of religion, define it as “a tendency for sociologists to focus on issues being debated in their own society.”36 And in fact, there is an older criticism that sociological research on religion, especially institutionally-oriented research, tends toward parochialism. In particular, some strains of denominationally-oriented [End Page 14] research on religion have neglected to consider the larger theoretical significance of its empirical findings.37 Of course, there is a tension here for scholars who care about making a public or...

Kėdainiai was a multicultural city in the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. From the second half of the 16th century to the end of the 17th century Protestants made up the majority of the population. The article sets out to analyse the material situation of the Kėdainiai Catholic parish in the 17th century, the relations between Catholics and Protestants, as well as the relations within the Catholic community. It aims to reveal the problems faced by the priests of the Catholic parish in the administration of the parish situated on the border between Vilnius and Samogitian dioceses and between Catholic and Protestant communities. The research was carried out on the basis of the material from the Archive of the Kėdainiai Catholic Parish, the data of visitations and inventories and other manuscript sources. Keywords: Kėdainiai, Holy Trinity and Saint George Parish, Catholics, Protestants, 17th century. Summary The article intends to show how parishioners supported Kėdainiai Holy Trinity and Saint George Church, what material, administrative and pastoral care related requirements were placed on priests, what conflicts used to arise and how they were solved in a multi-cultural parish. The research found that in the 17th century the Kėdainiai Catholic parish received its material support from the estate of Kunigiszki as well as the folwark of Boiany granted by Krzysztof Radziwill in 1627, the folwark of Paxteliszki bequeathed by the resident of Kėdainiai Kristina Paxtelowa in 1657 and the estate of Andrukiszki granted by the nobleman of Kaunas district, royal secretary, clerk of the Kaunas Castle Stefan Franciszek Medeksza in 1667. Several noblemen (Zabiello, Szukszta, etc.) granted certain sums of money to the parish the recovery of which would sometimes even lead to court proceedings. Quite a few noblemen and townspeople (including the Gypsies of Kėdainiai) gave various liturgical objects to the church and decorated altars with votive offerings – the signs of gratitude for the mercies received. The study showed that a number of conflicts between Catholics and Protestants as well as within the Catholic community used to arise in the Holy Trinity and Saint George Parish. In the first half of the 17th century the Protestants of Kėdainiai restricted the organization of the major annual holiday of the Catholic parish – the Feast of Corpus Christi – in the city by not allowing to hold a procession from the church to the Town Hall Square and to have a divine service near the temporary altars set up in the city. In the second half of the 17th century the forces of Evangelicals reduced in the city, but Catholics engaged in conflicts among themselves over material valuables and the ways of expanding the Catholic faith in the city. The townspeople raised their requirements for the priest as regards the administration of the parish property as well as education and pastoral care related affairs. In the second half of the 17th century the townspeople of Kėdainiai were planning to have a small monastery and a high-standard Catholic school with professional secular teachers teaching in it as well as to participate in the distribution of the parish income.

Reviewed by: Catholic Parishes of the 21st Century by Charles E. Zech et al. William A. Clark SJ Catholic Parishes of the 21st Century. By Charles E. Zech, Mary L. Gautier, Mark M. Gray, Jonathan L. Wiggins, Thomas P. Gaunt, SJ. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 176 pp. $24.95. This slender volume represents the culmination of years of work by the staff of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University to update the findings of the Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life, completed in 1987. That iconic study long provided the most comprehensive data available on Catholic parishes, but has now been in use for thirty startlingly eventful years. Many smaller, specific studies have since suggested the magnitude of the changes taking place in the U.S. church. The opportunity for another broad-based study, however, did not arise until 2009, when cooperation began between CARA and the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project (a collaboration of several national Catholic organizations and the Lilly Endowment). Together they envisioned a study large enough to build on the Notre Dame data, to examine trends that have unfolded since the turn of the century, and to add data on new questions emerging with those trends. To achieve this, they designed a general survey of a large sample of parishes, with follow-up surveys of representative sub-samples of both parish leaders and “in-pew” Catholics. A series of reports has already been issued by CARA as the various phases of the research were completed and analyzed. These will remain valuable for the detail they provide on particular aspects of the study. This is the volume, however, designed to bring it all together. The authors skillfully weave the most relevant material from the Emerging Models study with information gained through various other recent [End Page 63] CARA projects, to produce a lucid, coherent, and very readable narrative of U.S. parishes today. The picture that emerges is of an institution whose practical reality is being radically reshaped by powerful demographic, social, cultural, and economic forces, even while most of our presuppositions about what parishes are and how they operate lag noticeably behind. The book is organized in short chapters on specific key topics in contemporary U.S. parish life. The authors first detail some of the most striking changes since the Notre Dame study concluded. These include demographic shifts toward the South and West, an increasing number of multicultural parishes, the growing dominance of post-Vatican II and Millennial generations, the decrease in number and increase in size of parishes, and changes in parishioners’ loyalty to their “home parish.” Chapters follow on the demographics of pastoral leadership, strategies for reconfiguration of parishes, administration and finances, parishioner demographics, cultural diversity, and “The View from the Pews.” Each chapter gives a straightforward presentation of trends, illustrative statistics, and coherent discussion of implications. In a few instances—primarily in certain statistical notes and in the Appendix on Data Sets Used—the jargon employed might send some readers to consult a reference work. These moments, though, do not detract noticeably from the admirable clarity with which the data is presented, both in the narrative and in the many user-friendly graphs and tables. All of the concluding sections, also, contribute to making the book valuable to a variety of readers: a neatly presented summary of the trends in parish life over the last thirty years, and the specific impact they have had; the aforementioned list and descriptions of the data sets mined for the book; a substantial reference list including documents, studies, and books essential for anyone interested in U.S. parishes; and a good, detailed index of names and topics. CARA’s consistent modus operandi in its reports, as Marti Jewell reminds readers in her Foreword, requires that “the interpretation and application of these findings are left to the reader.” Although there are odd moments of advocacy for specific policies (this is notable, for example, in the “Parish Administration” chapter), Catholic Parishes by and large retains this standard. This may stir some initial impatience in readers who quickly start to see the enormous and varied implications of this data...

Immigration from Mexico and Latin America continue to redefine and transform the religious landscape of US churches. While Catholic parishes in large multi-ethnic cities like Los Angeles have a longer history of dynamic interaction with cultural and linguistic differences among parishioners, the more recent waves of immigration to the Midwest region of the United States posits new challenges for the Catholic church as more parishes are shared between Anglo and Latino communities. In a detailed ethnographic study of a particular Catholic parish in the Midwest (pseudonymously named All Saints in the pseudonymous town of Havenville), Brett Hoover invites the reader to consider the intricacies of day-to-day interaction, negotiation, and assumptions that take place when two culturally and linguistically distinct Catholic communities share the same parish facilities to coordinate their unique parish ministries and liturgies. Whereas one can more readily find statistics of the rising phenomenon of shared parishes across the country, it is more difficult to encounter an in-depth study that qualitatively illustrates and nuances both the potential gifts and the potential costs of a hybrid ecclesial structure whose identity is both that of two congregations (one Anglo and one Latino) and yet of one Catholic parish. At the root of Hoover’s study is the question of cultural diversity and the ways in which US Catholic churches have historically responded, are responding, and can creatively respond to the diverse communities that are already present in their midst. While parishes can simply wait for this phenomenon to affect them and then

This article examines how Catholics form their consciences together in parishes particularly on topics of gender and sexuality. The data for this project stems from ethnographic observations and forty interviews from a 2010 to 2012 study of two Catholic parishes in Chicago. The first is a progressive parish promoting inclusion of gay and lesbians as well as women’s ordination. The second had a small but active Respect Life group attempting to change their parish culture to be more committed to Respect Life issues. The paper suggests that cultural inertia (or lack there of) is one mechanism that drives or halts conscience formation. These collective consciences lead to differing understandings of what it means to be Church and to be a person, and they may motivate actions to change the Catholic Church hierarchy or local parish. Forming consciences together has implications for understanding the role of culture and structure in the Catholic Church. Specifically, these formed consciences, parish cultures, and actions produce different boundaries and partnerships with the Archdiocese which determines what actions are legitimate by setting the conditions for parish actions and constraining parish actions with threats of sanction.

Employing data from the National Congregations Study, this chapter charts parish trends in key areas of organizational life across a dynamic fifteen-year period of recent history. Parishes’ organizational composition is becoming older and more Hispanic, both among priests and among people in the pews. Meanwhile, local parish cultures are becoming more theologically conservative, but also less charismatic in worship style. Catholic parishes are also seeing large increases in political activity, suggesting a “new politicization” of local Catholic life. Finally, parishes have heightened their participation boundaries against women and gays and lesbians. While briefly suggesting possibilities for why these changes are taking place, this chapter provides an accurate descriptive view of contemporary U.S. parishes and suggests how best to study trends in the years ahead.

Along with parents and schools, congregations are part of a “religious transmission ecosystem” with children. Using case study data with a Catholic parish in Canada, this article explores how this parish defines and approaches various roles and initiatives across the religious transmission ecosystem, along with its perceived and experienced obstacles and responses related to religious transmission. I argue that while parents are seen as the central socialization influence, with parishes and Catholic schools playing supportive roles, a perceived problem is that many parents along with teachers in Catholic schools are cultural Catholics. As a result, this parish seeks to reassert itself as the dominant socialization influence in the religious transmission ecosystem toward (re)socializing children and their parents and teachers. Despite best efforts to help with religious transmission, this parish has resigned itself to a “planting seeds” approach, in hopes that something takes root and grows for parents and their children. The confluence of macro- and micro-level factors beyond parish control alongside cultural assumptions and behaviors within the parish together yield weak starting points to set children and their parents on a trajectory for higher rates of Catholic religious transmission.

Mexican-Descent Catholics and the U.S. Church, 1880–1910: Moving Beyond Chicano Assumptions Robert E. Wright O.M.I. With his editing of and contributions to the 1983 volume Fronteras, Moises Sandoval produced the first attempt at a comprehensive survey of Hispanic Christians in the United States.1 As president of CEHILA U.S.A. for the next two decades, he provided the stimulus and network for a growing body of scholarly research on that topic that has greatly matured. Yet, as in all scholarly fields, certain assumptions and lacunae invariably develop, waiting to be addressed. This essay points out one such important omission and the assumptions that have fostered it. In this instance, the work of respected colleagues has relied upon the early Chicano literature which has never been critically assessed. This essay, therefore, evaluates the most respected and utilized current surveys and, in the reference notes, the foundational Chicano literature upon which they rely. In doing so, I argue for a very different understanding and provide two case studies as examples of that needed revision. Historical accounts about Mexican-descent Catholics in the United States typically deal with the 1880–1910 period, if it is discussed at all, with a few general remarks that treat it as basically a continuation of the 1840–1880 period. By 1875 almost all of the famously (or infamously) chronicled players in the transition from the church of Mexico to the U.S. church in the Southwest2—Father Refugio de la Garza and Bishop Odin in Texas, Fathers Antonio José Martinez and Joseph Machebeuf and Bishop Lamy in New Mexico, Father José González Rubio and Bishops Alemany and Amat in California—had disappeared from the scene.3 Historical surveys generally assume [End Page 73] that the dynamics established in those first few decades remained basically the same after 1875, and focus upon 1910 as introducing the next major transition era. At that point the Mexican Revolution and the U.S. economy brought tens of thousands of Mexican immigrants to the United States and thus purportedly initiated a new phase in Mexican–descent Catholicism in the United States. Furthermore, surveys of the entire 1840–1910 period take an overall negative view, more highly pronounced in California and New Mexico, of church agents among those of Mexican descent. They have absorbed this view from early and more recent Chicano historians, as explained below. Problematic Current Surveys The landmark Notre Dame volume Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900–1965, actually begins its detailed regional histories with the year 1910. And, typically, its preliminary summaries of the previous history give very few specifics about Mexican-descent Catholics and the Church in the post-1880 years. Unfortunately, the major conclusions of those summaries are unreliable, following as they do the poorly substantiated Chicano assumptions. Thus Jeffrey Burns’ very brief sketch of pre-1910 California repeated without question the totally unsupported conclusions of Chicano historians Camarillo and Griswold del Castillo: By 1900 few Mexicans were attending the formal worship services of the Church. . . . The most important rites of passage—baptism, marriage, confirmation, and burial—continued to be celebrated in the church, but more daily devotions remained detached from parish life. . . . In sum, by 1900 ministry to the Mexican/Mexican-American community suffered from serious neglect.4 Camarillo5 and Griswold del Castillo6 cited Leonard Pitt’s The Decline of the Californios for their late-1800s generalizations. But the chapter on Catholicism in Pitt’s book dealt only with the 1850s, not treating at all the 1880–1910 period!7 [End Page 74] And yet when Burns began his discussion of the post-1910 period, he described the Catholic parish as a mainstay of Mexican life: “Catholic parishes, once established, played an integral role in barrio life.”8 Furthermore, the parishes in 1910 were often overcrowded.9 According to Burns, therefore, in one decade, 1900–1910, there was a complete shift from non-regular participation and serious neglect to overcrowded churches integral to barrio life!10 Gilberto Hinojosa’s fuller discussion in the same volume of the pre-1910 period in Texas and New Mexico pays somewhat more attention to the years after 1875, with...

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsYouth in a Catholic Parish. William Augustine McCaffrey John J. CroninJohn J. Cronin Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 15, Number 4Dec., 1941 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/633776 Views: 1Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Leadership networks in Catholic parishes: Implications for implementation research in health

This chapter analyzes data from a series of surveys of over 800 U.S. Catholic parishes conducted over a 10-year period by the Center for Applied Research at Georgetown University. She finds a curious outcome: the larger the parish the more likely parishioners were to evaluate the community and hospitality favorably, but parishes with little member turnover and more stability were less likely to evaluate community and hospitality as favorably. Members in the larger parishes, however, were also less likely actually to be involved in community-building and outreach activities. Wittberg thus raises questions about what this holds for the future of the American Catholic parish when almost three-fourths of American Catholics do not attend Mass (hence are not included in the surveys at all) and how to weigh the satisfaction of the quarter who do attend over against the larger body of non-attendees.