Postsecular American Catholics

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates how American Catholics embody the mutual relevance of religious and secular expectations that is the hallmark of postsecularity. It argues that individual interpretive autonomy—the secularization of religious authority—is critical to their construal of Catholicism, and it discusses the ironies this entails. The chapter shows that interpretive autonomy is legitimated in official Church teaching, which in part allows Catholics to disagree with Church teachings on sexual morality and other issues while maintaining loyalty to Catholicism. It is also used by them to advocate for doctrinal changes that would more closely align their secular expectations with their attachment to the sacraments. Interpretive autonomy is thus a crucial mechanism in the preservation of Catholicism as a living tradition open to secular realities. The chapter also discusses how intra-Catholic political differences and a large socioeconomic divide between white and a growing Hispanic Catholic population fracture the notion of Catholic communal solidarity.