Catholic Congregations Research Articles

American Catholic Hospitals: A Century of Changing Markets and Missions (review)

Reviewed by: American Catholic Hospitals: A Century of Changing Markets and Missions Vanessa Weller American Catholic Hospitals: A Century of Changing Markets and Missions. By Barbra Mann Wall . Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, March 2011. 256 pp. $45.95. Barbra Mann Wall's American Catholic Hospitals explores the pivotal role of Catholic healthcare institutions in the American medical marketplace. Wall examines the challenges religious healthcare providers faced over the course of the twentieth century, emphasizing the perpetual tension between their mission to minister to the needy and the demands of market competition and intensifying secularization. Increased reliance on private insurers and Medicare and Medicaid benefits altered reimbursement practices, shifting control within the healthcare industry from providers to third-party funders, while simultaneously saddling voluntary hospitals with a large portion of uninsured patients. Faced with an ultimatum to adapt or jeopardize their ability to meet their mission, Catholic hospital officials made many difficult choices - opting to incorporate lay professionals as administrators and practitioners (sometimes subverting their own control over hospital administration), abandon needy inner-cities in pursuit of wealthier suburban clientele, discourage unionization of hospital employees, and to accommodate certain transgressions of their faith, such as the provision of reproductive services in hybrid private-public hospitals. [End Page 69] Wall stresses that such responses were not duplicitous, but pragmatic and justifiably undertaken in order to achieve a greater good. She situates these instances of acquiescence to secularism and market competition within the context of the post-Vatican II church, wherein sisters and brothers religious answered the call for aggiornamento by actively participating in community and worldly matters in order to seek out those in need and assert universal human dignity. This ethos led many Catholic nurses and administrators, notably the Sisters of Saint Joseph at Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, Alabama, to pioneer advancements in hospital desegregation. The embrace of community involvement enabled Catholic hospitals to perpetuate their influence over not only local community health, but national trends in American healthcare as well. Through their "joint committee" alliance with the American Hospital Association and the Protestant Hospital Association, the Catholic Hospitals Association protected voluntary hospitals' autonomy by diminishing federal oversight of funds distributed through Hill-Burton and Kerr-Mills. While Catholic hospitals were forced to adapt to changing social conditions, they also actively participated in the transformation of United States healthcare. Yet, paradoxically, just as the women's liberation movement forced greater gender equality in healthcare professions nationally, women religious, who had always played prominent leadership roles in Catholic hospitals, were increasingly subordinated to professional male administrators. Offering a unique contribution to historiographies of American healthcare institutions and the tradition of Catholic charitable care, American Catholic Hospitals is primarily an institutional history - with attendant consideration of transformative social influences. Consequently, Wall presents a decidedly institutional perspective, eschewing exploration of the changing relationships between religious caregivers and their patients - the ultimate purpose, and arguably the most important aspect of institutional care. Despite this omission, Wall presents a compelling and well-documented narrative of the dynamic transformation of Catholic hospitals in twentieth-century America - useful for both undergraduate and advanced readers. Drawing on records from Catholic congregations throughout the United States, she reveals an admirable perseverance of religious caregivers, demonstrated by their willingness to adapt to socioeconomic forces often inimical to charitable care. [End Page 70] Vanessa Weller The Graduate Center of the City University of New York Copyright © 2011 American Catholic Historical Society

Reducing prejudice in organizations: The role of intergroup contact, out‐group homogeneity, and in‐group size

AbstractThis survey study investigated the direct and indirect relationships among intergroup contact, in‐group size, out‐group homogeneity, in‐group homogeneity, and prejudice. The participants were 299 White women from seven Catholic congregations in the United States. The survey results indicated that in‐group size was positively related to prejudice toward racial out‐group members. Intergroup contact also mediated the relationship between in‐group size and prejudice. Moreover, perceptions of out‐group homogeneity not only correlated positively with prejudice, but also mediated the relationship between quantity and quality of intergroup contact and prejudice. Finally, perceptions of in‐group homogeneity were positively associated with prejudice. These results not only demonstrate the value of the frequency and depth of intergroup contact on reducing prejudice, but also highlight the role of in‐group size in influencing opportunities for contact. Moreover, perceptions of heterogeneity/uniqueness of both in‐group and out‐group members appear to serve as mechanisms through which contact reduces prejudice.

The Divine Online: Civic Organizing, Identity Building, and Internet Fluency Among Different Religious Groups

The number of religious congregations with Web sites nearly tripled from 1998–2006, and each year another 10,000 congregations launch a Web site (Chaves & Anderson, 2008). Couple this with the fact that 79% of attendees are now in a congregation with a Web site. Scholars of media and religion know very little, however, about the content of these Web sites or what they tell us about the culture of different religious groups. The aim of this article, therefore, is to examine how congregations are constructing Web sites to advertise their identity, organize their followers to get involved in civic and political issues, and provide an interactive space for online participation in actual ministries. Extensive qualitative data were gathered from 600 individual congregation Web sites from nine denominations in 53 different cities across the United States. The results of the descriptive analysis of these data suggest that there is a strong correlation between the “off-line” characteristics of a particular congregation and the “on-line” characteristics of the same congregation. Evangelical congregations tend to have more complex, attractive, and interactive Web sites and fall into the “online religion” camp. Liberal-Protestant and Catholic congregations tend to create static “brochure” style Web sites that emphasize their denominational identity and thus fall into Hadden and Cowan's (2000) “religion online” camp. This study expands our theoretical knowledge about the proliferation of media into, and out of, religious congregations, and offers a broader understanding about how institutions negotiate their online identity in the digital age. [Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of the Journal of Media and Religion for the following free supplemental resource: Appendix II: Web Site Screen Shots.]

<i>The Practice of Pluralism: Congregational Life and Religious Diversity in Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1730–1820</i> (review)

Reviewed by: The Practice of Pluralism: Congregational Life and Religious Diversity in Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1730–1820 Richard K. Macmaster Mark Haberlein . The Practice of Pluralism: Congregational Life and Religious Diversity in Lancaster, Pennsylvania 1730–1820. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009. Pp. xi, 276, notes, tables, bibliography, index. Cloth, $79.00.) "You can hardly imagine how many denominations you will find here," a German settler in Hereford Township, Berks County, wrote to friends in Europe in 1768, but "we are always at peace with each other." Indeed, anyone who despised another because of his religion would be considered foolish. "Everybody speaks his mind freely. A Mennonite preacher is my next neighbor and I could not wish for a better one. On the other side I have a big Catholic church" and "the present Jesuit Father . . . confides more in me than in those who come to him for confession . . . Next to them the Lutherans and Reformed have their congregations." Pluralism was the rule in the experience of Schwenkfelder elder Christoph Schultz. "We are all going to and fro like fish in water." Was this the experience of other Pennsylvania communities? Was it confined to rural pockets like Schultz's neighborhood? Mark Haberlein, professor of early modern history at the University of Bamberg in Germany, chose Lancaster to "demonstrate how religious diversity emerged and how adherents of various faiths interacted with one another in a single town." He has succeeded in an admirable study illuminating many aspects of Lancaster's first century. His meticulously-researched local history has broad implications for American religious history, as Haberlein has made a case for seeing [End Page 245] the long eighteenth century as more significant than earlier or later periods in building religious institutions and shaping American attitudes. Lancaster, like many Pennsylvania towns and villages, was essentially a German-speaking community and its churches reflected this. Lutherans comprised forty percent of the taxpayers in the borough in 1773, adherents of the German Reformed Church twenty percent and Moravians ten percent. The small Catholic congregation was also German-speaking. The town also had an Anglican church and a Quaker meeting. Laura Becker found much the same religious mix in early Reading. Mennonites and Presbyterians were rooted in rural Lancaster County. The Presbyterian congregation in Lancaster remained "in a rather forming state" until 1770 when they obtained their first minister. His primary call was to rural Leacock Presbyterian Church, where he resided, and Lancaster had only a third of his time. Haberlein has broken new ground in demonstrating that their churches were important to most Lancastrians and that an increasing percentage participated in church life as the century wore on. In her study of Germantown, for instance, Stephanie Grauman Wolf concluded that churches had a very small role in the community, reflecting the growing secularization of the community. Haberlein found that 63 percent of borough taxpayers in 1751 and 72.5 percent of those on the 1773 tax assessment repeatedly appear in church records. Since the Catholic and Presbyterian congregations have no surviving records for most of the century and Anglican records are spotty, Haberlein found a high percentage of Germans were communicant members of the Lutheran or Reformed congregation and their number increased steadily between 1749 and 1790. Lancaster churches experienced a common problem in the early decades of the town's history, a dearth of trained clerical leadership. Each congregation was left in turmoil by a series of incompetent clergy and jackleg preachers. The Catholics, served by Jesuit pastors from German universities, were the exception. Moravian efforts to supply Lutheran and Reformed pulpits with awakened preachers added to the confusion and led some members of the older churches to join the new Lancaster Moravian congregation. A tradition of strong lay leadership emerged in each group. Reflecting the composition of the community, they were mainly artisans before mid-century and thereafter drawn from the merchants, shopkeepers, lawyers and medical doctors of the town. In the second half of the century, all the churches had settled pastors with university or pietist academy training. Lay leaders seem to have been reluctant to go along with the emphasis on church discipline [End Page 246] and tighter pastoral control...

Congregating by cassette

A single communications device has transformed interactions between members of widely dispersed transnational Haitian religious communities: the audiocassette recorder. Messages, hymns and prayers taped on them crisscross the sea between Haiti and its diaspora, engaging distantly separated co-religionists in sporadically sequenced, yet effectively intimate conversations and rituals. For both Vodouist and Catholic religious congregations, tape recordings in Haitian Creole effectively circumvent scriptural French and help cement transnational ties by creating vast transnational performative spaces. This article draws on ethnographic research in Haiti and Florida to describe and theorize the important role that audiocassettes have played, in the transnational Haitian case, in cementing `assembled groups' and recreating `certain mental states of those groups' in ways that Durkheim might not have imagined when developing his epic argument about the socially cohesive function and essence of religion, an argument from which we take our theoretical orientation.

The Divine Word Missionaries in Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang, 1922–1953: A Bibliographic Note

Between 1922 and 1953, the German-Dutch Catholic Congregation Societas Verbi Divini, SVD, also known as the Divine Word Missionaries or Steyl Missionaries, sent approximately 90 missionaries to Northwest China. During these three decades, the Divine Word Missionaries established some 30 missionary stations (plus about 100 out-stations) in Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang.

Religion, Ethnicity and Immigrant Integration: ‘Latino’ Lutherans versus ‘Mexican’ Catholics in a Midwestern City

AbstractAlthough the majority of Latin American immigrants to the United States are Roman Catholics, increasing numbers of Latinos are converting to Protestantism. To understand the incentives for, and any possible integration effects of, immigrants' religious conversion, it is crucial to examine not only the religious but also the social boundaries of new immigrant congregations. This article examines the class‐based but ethnically labeled boundary construction of a Latino Lutheran towards a Latino Roman Catholic congregation in Madison, Wisconsin. The de facto ethnicised class differentiation via denominational choice shows that first: for ethnic discrimination to occur, no exclusive and imperative categories are needed, second: socioeconomic identification can superimpose religious and ethno‐cultural feelings of belonging, and third: the formation of a more liberal and higher educated ‘Latino’ Lutheran community facilitates the civic integration of its worshippers into the broader community based on the political mobilisation of panethnic identification.

The Use of Internet Communication by Catholic Congregations: A Quantitative Study

This article presents a first attempt to measure the use of the internet by all 5,812 Catholic religious congregations and autonomous institutes worldwide (with 858,988 members). The research was conducted through a questionnaire sent by e-mail, hence first selecting those institutions which at least have an access to internet communication through an e-mail account (2,285: 39.3% of the total), receiving 437 responses (19.1% of the e-mail owners). The study shows great differences between centralized institutes and autonomous ones: the former ones make a higher use of the Internet than the latter ones; moreover, differences are also found among centralized institutes, namely between male and female ones. Two explanatory elements have been found, both depending on the own mission (charisma) of institutes: (1) first, the different approach to the external world: the institutes more devoted to contemplation and less active in the outside world make limited and basic use of the Internet, if any; (2) second, institutes whose aim is to assist poor and sick persons tend to use the internet less than the others, due to their different prioritization of resources.

Entre littérature et religion les pratiques d'auteur de jean goulu

Inscrite dans une période décisive pour le développement de la culture imprimée en France, l'activité de publication de Jean Goulu, supérieur d'un ordre religieux en pleine expansion et auteur de traductions philosophiques et religieuses, d'ouvrages de controverse et de piété et de pamphlets, est exemplaire des luttes autour du monde du livre qui marquent le premier XVIIe siècle. Au croisement des sphères politique, religieuse et littéraire, cet auteur met le livre au service d'une carrière, mais aussi d'une entreprise morale et politique de contrôle de la production imprimée à destination du public non savant qui se développe alors, et par là même, d'une volonté de contrôle des manières de lire de ce public. L'étude des livres de Goulu et de ses choix scripturaires et éditoriaux permet ainsi de comprendre comment l'écrit imprimé représente un moyen de construire son identité et d'agir dans le monde.

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM: A RESPONSE TO TERRENCE W. TILLEY

AbstractTerrence W. Tilley has argued that Dominus Iesus, published by the Roman Catholic Congregation from the Doctrine of Faith in 2000, legitimates a de jure form of religious pluralism which is compatible and acceptable to orthodox Catholic faith. This claim is inspected and criticised on both textual and logical grounds. Textually, Tilley is found guilty of incorporating that which he wishes to prove in his premises. The argument advanced thus clarifies the teachings of Dominus Iesus and also indicates the problem with Jacques Dupuis’ position.

The Moral Hazards Of Christian Obligations In Brazil's Rural Zona Da Mata

From 1999 through 2003, applied research in Brazil's Zona da Mata was undertaken to identify the reasons why some households choose, either actively or by default, not to participate in rural assistance efforts. Class-based guiding hypotheses held that participation would correlate positively with economic, demographic and health measures of household need, but found only limited support. These hypotheses found their greatest support within the community's small but rapidly growing Pentecostal congregation, but were generally contradicted within the community's much larger Catholic congregation, and totally contradicted by full participation, regardless of need or religious affiliation, within one of the research community's 14 hamlets. The hamlet's contradiction resulted from a pooling of an extended family's labour and resources to achieve full participation. The larger community's contradiction of the guiding hypotheses resulted from the wealthiest Catholic households' self-described ‘Christian obligations’ to provide garden produce upon request to the poorest Catholic households. The earth does not yield its fruits without a particular human response to God's gift, that is to say, without work. (John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, cited in Neuhaus 1999)

From Pews to Participation: The Effect of Congregation Activity and Context on Bridging Civic Engagement

This article identifies two important conditions under which participation in religious congregations influences active involvement in civic organizations that provide charitable services to and establish other types of linkages with residents in the wider community. We find that while the frequently employed measure of religious service attendance has minimal effects on participation in bridging types of civic organizations, congregation activity beyond religious service attendance has a substantial positive effect on participation in charitable and linking types of civic organizations. In addition, our findings demonstrate that religious tradition significantly moderates the extent to which congregation activity channels bridging civic engagement. While active involvement in black Protestant, mainline Protestant, and Catholic congregations predicts participation in substantially more bridging civic organizations, active involvement in evangelical Protestant congregations has little effect on this participation.

CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

AbstractThe paper argues that it can be demonstrated that the position of Jacques Dupuis, S.J., a pluralist, is compatible with that of the syllabus on religious pluralism produced by the Roman Catholic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominius Iesus. This demonstration provides good reason to believe that at least one form of de jure pluralism, labeled “inclusivist pluralism”, is a theological theory compatible with orthodox Christian belief.

‘Good teacher’ or ‘good religious’? the professional identity of catholic women religious in nineteenth-century England and Wales

Roman Catholic women's congregations are an enigma of nineteenth-century social history. Over ten thousand women involved in these congregations have been rendered invisible in history. Despite their exclusion from historical texts, these women featured prominently in negotiating the boundaries of religious life, sometimes to their collective benefit, sometimes not. Prescriptive literature gave one model of womanhood, married life, with a second model, single life, clearly an inauspicious alternative. Women religious provided a different model and created a religious, occupational and professional identity that varied from the prescriptive literature of the day. Their religious identity had as its goal their own ‘perfection’ and the salvation of others. Their occupational identity as ‘nun’ often encompassed a wide variety of tasks, but by the end of the century, the professional identity of nun as teacher or nurse was firmly in place.

Focused on the Family? Religious Traditions, Family Discourse, and Pastoral Practice

The relationship between religion and the family has recently reemerged as an important object of sociological inquiry. However, research has largely overlooked the ways in which the family discourse produced by specific religious traditions is connected to family‐focused pastoral practices of congregations. Using data from the National Congregations Study, we find that family discourse and pastoral practice are only “loosely coupled” to one another. Ideological differences among mainline Protestant, conservative Protestant, and Roman Catholic congregations do not translate directly into differences in family ministry offerings. These findings help explain why research often finds that religion exercises uniform effects on family life, insofar as most congregations offer a similar package of ministries even though their family discourse is markedly different.

Monastic Reading and Learning in eighteenth-century Bilād al-Šām: Some Evidence from the Monastery of al-Šuwayr (Mount Lebanon)

AbstractA thematic analysis of the manuscripts which were read, copied and written by the monks, the paper raises the issue of education and knowledge amongst the members of the Greek Catholic congregation of the Basilians of al-Šuwayr (Mount Lebanon) during the 18th century, a time in which the order constituted an intellectual centre in Syria, although its influence remained mainly restricted to the own communiy. Despite all efforts the level of knowledge remained—compared with European standards—low. But the monks nevertheless developed a basic attitude, which was important for the introduction of modernity to the Arab world in the 19th century. They had broad interests beyond the narrow limits of their own religion and did not assume from the start a disapproving attitude towards the knowledge and inventions of the West. These were decisive preconditions for a process of learning that had become imperative if the Orient wanted to close the quickly widening scientific gap between East and West.

Civil Society and Religion in Post-Communist Hungary

How can the churches in Hungary today help in building civil society without becoming politicised or submerged in a secular world? This essay focuses on the different roles and activities of larger and smaller churches in Hungarian civil society, especially Catholic congregations and smaller communities, new religious movements and groups, the "official church," and the "civil church," Churches and religious communities in Hungary are still too rigid in their institutional forms to become an organic part of civil society. To preserve their unique calling churches have to play the role as a participant of a special form of civil society--the "contrast-society." Only churches institutionalized in an appropriate way will be able to accommodate civil society without being assimilated by it. Thus, churches can become part of civil society mainly in the form of a dialogue. Hungarian churches, religious groups, and movements are just at the beginning of a promising process.

Church‐Based Community Activism: A Comparison of Black and White Catholic Congregations

Scholars have recently examined the role of black churches in initiating civil rights and social justice activities, community development and rehabilitation projects, and family support and community health outreach programs. Practically all of this research has been on black Protestant churches. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature by investigating the extent to which African‐American Catholic congregations engage in social action and social service programs in their communities. Data drawn from a nationwide survey of U.S. Catholic parishes are used to show that black churches are significantly more likely than white churches to engage in social service and social action activities independent of a variety of demographic, organizational, and structural factors known—or suspected—to influence activism. This finding lends support to the argument that the extra religious functions of black churches—Protestant and Catholic—are more deeply ingrained in these religious institutions than is suggested by some analysts. Equally significant is the finding of positive and significant relationships between churches that have parish councils and leadership training programs and congregational activism. This finding lends support to previous findings that suggest that the organizational structure of religious institutions may influence churchgoers' opportunities for learning and practicing civic skills relevant to community activism.

Church‐based Community Activism: A Comparison of Black and White Catholic Congregations

Scholars have recently examined the role of black churches ein einitiatingcivil rights and social justice activities, community development and rehabilitation projects, and family support and community health outreach programs. Practically all of this research has been on black Protestant churches. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature byinvestigating the extent to which African‐American Catholic congregations engage in social action and social service programs in their communities. Data drawn from a nationwide survey of U.S. Catholic parishes are us d to show that black church s are significantly more likely than white churches to engage in social service and social action activities independent of a variety of demographic, organizational, and structural factors known—or suspected—to influence activism. This finding lends support to the argument that the extra‐religious functions of black churches—Protestant and Catholic—are more deeply ingrained in these religious institutions than is suggested by some analysts. Equally significant is the finding of positive and significant relationships between churches that have parish councils and leadershiptraining programs and congregational activism. This finding lends support to previous findings that suggest that the organizational structure of religious institutions may influence churchgoers opportunities for learning and practicing civic skills relevant to community activism.

Christ the Living Stone

One of the few English-language hymns still used by both Reformation and Roman Catholic congregations since the displacement of the "standard" repertory by the new wave of liturgical hymns is the moving praise "The Church's One Foundation Is Jesus Christ Her Lord" composed by Samuel John Stone (1839-1900). The hymn draws upon a metaphor taken from the activity of building. In this vision Christians are seen as a community of believers, a house with many mansions or rooms built on a solid base or "foundation" as a protection against destabilization or destruction. In the geological setting of Palestine where earthquakes, windstorms, sandy soil and seasonal rains and floods are not unknown, it has been especially important for builders to secure a house on a solid foundation.