Catholic Religiosity Research Articles

“I wanted to have a Christian family”: Affinities Between Religiosity and Family Styles Among Catholics and Evangelicals in a Low-Income Neighborhood in Santiago

This article explores the relationship between religiosity—as experiential and practical religious involvement—and family styles—as effective kinship expectations and configurations. We begin by identifying three gaps and one risk in the previous literature: excessive focus on (Evangelical) conversion; the paucity of comparative Catholic/Evangelical studies; the absence of an extended family and intergenerational approach; and, although to a lesser extent, a risk of conflation of the religious phenomenon. Based on ethnographic observations and interviews conducted in a low-income neighborhood in Santiago, we investigated native Catholic and Evangelical individuals and couples with similar levels of religiosity and socioeconomic status. We have observed two contrasting family styles. While among Catholics, we found a deep appreciation of intergenerational solidarity with a matrifocal bias, with a secondary importance on the marital relationship; among Evangelicals, we observed a strong conjugality and relative relegation of intergenerational relationships. We explore these results using the lens of “affinities” between religious and family spheres, close to Max Weber’s classic concept of elective affinities. Evangelical religiosity produces solid boundaries with the secular world, including the influence of contextual family culture and non-nuclear kin, combined with an emphasis on individual autonomy and responsibility, which correlates with the notion of conjugality as an elective bond. Catholic religiosity is instead much more tolerant of the secular world, allowing a contextual family culture to permeate family configurations. The Catholic emphasis on Grace as an unconditional and gratuitous divine act, combined with popular devotion to Mary, reinforces the centrality of matrifocal intergenerational ties.

Confessional Cultures and European Identity: Religion, Ideology, and Economics

Proponents of greater European political unity through the development of the European Union (EU) have long sought to foster a “European” identity among citizens as a way of advancing their cause. And there is now a substantial body of scholarship devoted to understanding the social, economic, and demographic factors contributing to the development of such an identity. Recently, there has been a growing interest in cultural influences, but the possible impact of religion has been largely ignored. Using Eurobarometer 65.2 (2006), we show that religious groups differ systematically in their propensity to take “European” identity markers. Using multivariate analysis, we demonstrate that Catholics are most likely to be cognitive “Europeans”, while Protestants and other Christians are less likely to take such perspectives. Religiosity tends to reinforce the dominant propensity of each tradition. These religious differences persist even under statistical controls for other demonstrated influences, although their effects are strongest in the old Western European “core” of the EU. The long-term decline of Catholic religiosity thus has important implications for the future of “European” identities: their growth will depend increasingly on less “diffuse” and more variable influences, such as successful economic management by EU and national governments.

Vers un catholicisme du ressenti ? Les virtuoses et la recomposition d'une religiosité catholique au Québec en ce début de XXIe siècle.

Since 2001, several indicators of religiosity in Quebec show a loss of the dominant configuration of cultural Catholicism since the 1960s. The arrival of new generations is one of the causes of this transformation. A new regime of religiosity is at stake, of which the rise of the non-religious is one of the visible manifestations. But this is only one pole. At the other end of the spectrum are also strongly committed and churchgoers Catholics, with an assumed and asserted religious identity. The life stories of these new "virtuosos", collected as part of a research project on cultural Catholicism in Quebec, reveal the contours of this reshaping and its narrative framework. By describing and analyzing it, this article seeks to grasp what this figure of the virtuoso tells us about contemporary Quebec Catholicism. In this context, a new form of Catholic religiosity centered on feeling is emerging.

Scotland's Catholics, A Distinctive Community?

Despite persistent debate about the status and character of Scotland’s Catholic community the question of how distinctive – if at all – Scotland’s Catholics are within a wider British Catholicism is seldom asked. Utilising the newly released Catholics in Britain Survey of 2019 this short article sketches out some comparative evidence on Catholic religiosity, moral values, family, and personal networks. It concludes that Scotland’s Catholicism is closely similar, in terms of such measures, to a wider British Catholic community.

Catholic religiosity in a modern Russian city: an attempt of the text data semantic analysis

Catholic religiosity in a modern Russian city: an attempt of the text data semantic analysis

A RONDA DOS SÉCULOS E A AUTONOMIA DA ASSINATURA “GUSTAVO BARROSO”

This text aims to discuss how the signature “Gustavo Barroso” becomes autonomous through the analysis of the narrative discourse of A ronda dos seculos (1933). Based on the studies of Gerard Genette, he shows that the signature alludes to a set of discursive strategies, to Catholic religiosity and anti-Semitism. It concludes that the understanding of the intellectual Gustavo Barroso must include the meaning of this signature, present in all his books since the 1930s. KEYWORDS: Gustavo Barroso. A Ronda dos seculos. Anti-Semitism.

Lula and the Future of the Past

Lula and the Future of the Past

Descriptio y pasiones en la teoría de la persuasión de Luis de Granada

This article studies the descriptio and the passions in Luis de Granada’s theory of persuasion present in his Libro de la oracion y meditacion (1554) and Retorica eclesiastica (1576). For this purpose, the study inquires into some rhetoric precepts belonging to both the Ancient World and the Reinassance, in order to outline the trajectory of this resource and identify the similarities and differences as compared to the author’s proposal. Furthermore, we analyze the place of the image and vision within Catholic religiosity in the XVI century to understand the importance of the descriptio technique given by Granada’s thinking. Finally, this article reflects upon the relationship between word and image in the Spanish Golden Age, suggesting a reformulation that comes from the distinction between narration and description.

Values and personality traits as predictors of Catholic religiosity

The main goal of this study was to investigate the dimensions of value orientations and personality traits that underly Catholic religiosity. The survey was carried out on a convenient adult sample of members of the Croatian ethnic minority across the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in the Republic of Serbia (N = 189); 97% were members of the Roman Catholic Church. Four measures were included in the questionnaire: Religiosity, the Schwartz Value Scale, the Big Five Personality Inventory, and the Dark Triad of Personality. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to explore how value orientation and personality traits impact religiosity. Conservation (Traditional) values and Self-Transcendence values emerged as significant positive predictors, whereas Openness to Change values emerged as a significant negative predictor of religiosity. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness emerged as significant positive predictors, whereas Extraversion emerged as a significant negative predictor of religiosity. Machiavellianism and Psychopathy were also shown to be significant negative predictors of religiosity; in order, Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and Conservation values accounted for 23% of the variance in Catholic Religiosity. We found that the Schwartz value orientations had a somewhat greater explanatory power than the Big Five personality traits, and that the Dark Triad of personality traits had a greater explanatory power in predicting Catholic religiosity than either the Schwartz value orientations or the Big Five personality traits. We argued that religiosity is not generally more correlated with values than with personality traits, as is often suggested. It depends primarily on the type of personality trait models involved, i.e. its psychopathological underpinning.

Wheat Pattern Wares, Fascism, and the Building of an Italian Identity in Southern Brazil

This article investigates the connections between Wheat Pattern refined earthenwares produced in Sao Paulo and the Italian immigration farming colony of northeast Rio Grande do Sul during the first decades of the twentieth century. It explores the wheat symbology to discuss the role that these wares exerted in the construction of an Italian identity in southern Brazil appealing to those immigrants´ core values: agricultural labor, family life, and Catholic religiosity. Meanwhile, the fascist regime diffused these same values to build a trans-Atlantic national identity which bounded immigrants to their homeland as civilization carriers for the New Roman Empire designed by Mussolini.

Altares vemos, significados no sabemos

This work consists of a photographic essay about domestic altars accompanied by their owners’ narratives. It aims to address the Catholic religiosity which is practiced on a daily basis in non-ecclesial spaces. This ethnographic work (based on photographic records and interviews) is focused on the altars’ materialism (which makes beliefs visible) and on narratives giving account of their symbolic meanings as well as appropriations and uses of Catholic images in the believers’ daily lives. We deal with three scenarios for the assembly and practice of these shrines; domestic (they are usually private, individual and are located inside the homes). Semi-private (in workplaces such as offices, market stalls, bars and workshops), which even though they are cared for by only one person they are exposed to the public and used for religious practices by those who attend these places. Public ones (streets or neighborhoods) are placed in open spaces (a sidewalk, square or street corner), activate collective practices and are often protected by a community. We consider it a novel methodological proposal to approach the understanding of these religious experiences on their non-ecclesial logic.

DIREITOS HUMANOS E A DOUTRINA SOCIAL DA IGREJA CATÓLICA: APROXIMAÇÕES E DIFERENÇAS

O presente trabalho trata de uma analise sobre o desenvolvimento e consolidacao dos direitos humanos a partir de uma relacao eurocentrica historica de sua existencia e a atual pretensao de universalidade, mas que em verdade demonstram sua selecao de direitos a serem garantidos pautados nos valores economicos e sociais caracteristicos da etica burguesa resultando numa pos-colonialidade com marcas de dominacao e exclusao. Em seguida, observar-se-a a composicao do direito canonico e sua relacao com as formas de Estado e sua atual posicao enquanto defensora dos direitos humanos, porem credula do direito natural, o que, dentro de sua relacao de fe e verdade, implica em influencias religiosas nos Estados seculares. A partir disso, entao, busca-se aproximar as visoes acerca dos direitos humanos numa perspectiva religiosa e num vies juridico civil, analisado pontos de divergencia e espacos comunhao de ideias. Esse trabalho busca problematizar e agregar elementos de compreensao quanto a questao da espiritualidade (religiosidade), inseridas tanto em questoes legislativas quanto no campo da politica. Metodologicamente esse trabalho parte de analise teorica, desde revisao bibliografica, utilizando metodo dedutivo e tendo como material dessa pesquisa analitica a literatura tanto da religiosidade catolica e seus postulados constantes nas enciclicas e doutrina social, quanto da definicao tanto liberal quanto critica de direitos humanos.

Synergism between Catholicism and Indigenous Spirituality within the Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Program of Takiwasi, a Therapeutic Community in the Peruvian High-Amazon

The association between spirituality and medicine is unfolding as a research theme that may have increasing practical implications in healthcare systems. Both spiritual and scientific dimensions are present within the treatment protocol for addiction applied at the Takiwasi Center, a pioneer therapeutic community that combines western approaches, including psychotherapy, biomedicine, and Catholic practices, with traditional Amazonian medicine. Through a series of open-ended and semi-structured interviews conducted on nine workers of the center during fieldwork research and comparison with the information obtained from literature review, the present article aims at testing the existence of an effective synergy between Catholic religiosity and indigenous-mestizo spirituality within the therapeutic process performed at the Takiwasi Center and puts in evidence some stimulating and problematic issues that arise from this synergy.

The Role of Religion in Shaping Responses to Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions

In contrast to the situation only a few years ago, the case for religion being accepted as a vital element in the cultural responses to disasters has been largely accepted by both academic writers and international agencies, such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Religions are far more varied in their approaches to natural catastrophes than is frequently recognised or acknowledged by academic writers who are trained and socialised within a 'western' post-Enlightenment tradition. In this paper we seek to demonstrate how detailed religious responses to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions vary even between two societies, southern Italy and the Azores, which are broadly similar in terms of their southern European Catholic religiosity. In southern Italy, popular Catholicism has conflated two approaches to theodicy: the retributive and the Augustinianism (i.e. free-will). Divine wrath may be propitiated through piety and Christian action, which includes worship, repentance, changed conduct and is often associated with well-choreographed ritualistic actions, some of the latter being far removed from Catholic orthodoxy. Such reactions to disaster are not confined to the past but remain strongly embedded in present-day practice. In the Azores a combination of: a history of a better educated and more enlightened church leadership; greater emphasis on praxis following disasters; the growth of the distinctive, egalitarian and pastorally focused Cult do Esparto Santo (i.e. Cult of the Holy Spirit) and the spread of alternative models of theodicy through educational outreach, has produced a strongly contrasting religious response. We conclude that, in the case of the Azores the religious milieu favours active collaboration between the Catholic faith community and the Civil Defence authorities in the aftermath of disasters, whereas this is not the case in southern Italy, although there are some recent signs of change.

Validation of the SpREUK—Religious Practices Questionnaire as a Measure of Christian Religious Practices in a General Population and in Religious Persons

Measures of spirituality should be multidimensional and inclusive and as such be applicable to persons with different worldviews and spiritual-religious beliefs and attitudes. Nevertheless, for distinct research purposes it may be relevant to more accurately differentiate specific religious practices, rituals and behaviors. It was thus the aim of this study to validate a variant version of the SpREUK-P questionnaire (which measures frequency of engagement in a large spectrum of organized and private religious, spiritual, existential and philosophical practices). This variant version was enriched with items addressing specific rituals and practices of Catholic religiosity, by further differentiating items of praying and meditation. The instrument was then tested in a sample of Catholics (inclusively nuns and monks), Protestants, and in non-religious persons. This 23-item SpREUK-RP (Religious Practices) questionnaire has four factors (i.e., Prosocial-Humanistic practices; General religious practices; Catholic religious practices; Existentialistic practices/Gratitude and Awe) and good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.84 to 0.94). An advantage of this instrument is that it is not generally contaminated with items related to persons’ well-being, and it is not intermixed with specific religious attitudes and convictions.

Nuestra Señora del Rosario en el Santuario Mariano: hermandades y devociones negros en Salvador y el Recôncavo Baiano (siglo XVIII)

Organized by Frei Agostinho de Santa Maria and published in 1722, the Marian Sanctuary and History of the Miracles image of Our Lady consist the registrations of marian invocations worshiped in Portuguese territory, made by clergymen from differents parishes in the xviii century. The ninth volume deal witch the invocations found in Bahia. In this article we mean to use this text as a study sourse for the history religious belief, as well as in the study of the Catholic religiosity history among the black people in the reconcavo baiano. The reconcavo baiano was one of the most important region of the sugar cane production in the American Portuguesa in that period where concentrated an expressive population of black people that was used in the slave labor in that production. Our analysis which has as a main objective of study Our Lady of Rosario worship in the brotherhoods and the black people’s devotions in that region. Seeking to understand at first the motivation for such worship, experienced in the context of the slavery. Subsequently we will concentrate our analysis in the aspects linked to its growth and development, such as celebrations for their Patroness, and the use of images in moments of celebrations. From here it’s necessary to comprehend how the place of the black, as a slave or a free man, marked the relations established and the differents moments of celebrations.

Some (Not So) Lost Aquatic Traditions

Every year on 29 June members of an immigrant Goan fishing community living in the port of Catembe (Mozambique) gather for a religious ceremony at a designated spot on the shore overlooking the Indian Ocean with Maputo's skyline as a backdrop. They pray to São Pedro (Catholic St Peter) to bless their boats for the coming fishing season. Afterwards, they take out their highly decorated vessels, very often dedicated to Catholic patron saints, into Maputo Bay for a maritime procession. This essay takes as its entry port this ritualized annual event to look more closely at religious connectivities between India and East Africa, via Portuguese colonizing and conversion processes, and across the Indian Ocean. That this rite of passage has endured over four generations for this ‘littoral’ Catholic Goan community, one that largely relies on commercial prawn fishing as a way of life, suggests the power of religious practices, including the Catholic pantheon of saints, to migrate alongside persons. That this feast day celebration takes place at the oceanfront, the place they originally arrived as migrants from Portuguese India by ship at the turn of the twentieth century, suggests the ways in which Catholic religiosity is used to commemorate Goan migration and culture simultaneously. Lastly, that this maritime parade is dedicated exclusively to St Peter, the Catholic patron saint of fishermen the world over, suggests the importance of fishing – not only as a means of economic livelihood, but also as a source for community solidarity and social reproduction – in the daily lives of this dynamic diasporic group that presently numbers approximately one hundred families. Ethnography, literature and photography are used as forms of postcolonial intervention in carving out old and new (Indian) oceanic geographies.

Traces of Reduction: Marion and Heidegger on the Phenomenon of Religion

AbstractIn his work, Being Given, Jean‐Luc Marion calls for a phenomenological investigation of the givenness (donation) of the phenomenon. As a phenomenologist of religion, Marion aims to give a philosophical account of the possibility of revelation, something which by definition is unconditionally given. In Being Given, he contends that his phenomenological reduction to unconditional givenness (in the figure of the saturated phenomenon) can account for religious phenomena in a way that respects the subject matter, all the while remaining philosophically neutral. In this paper I argue that Marion's aim to maintain strict philosophical neutrality interferes with his attempt to respect the subject matter of his own investigation, i.e., the givenness of revelation, since revelation is recognizably given, even as possibility, only in the non‐neutral context of an interpretive tradition. I establish the latter claim with recourse to Heidegger's early hermeneutic sketches of ‘primordial Christian religiosity.’ In turn, I call for a phenomenological Destruktion of Marion's work in order to release its potential as a non‐neutral investigation of a distinctively Catholic religiosity.

Ambivalent Sexism and Religion: Connected Through Values.

Sexist attitudes do not exist in a limbo; they are embedded in larger belief systems associated with specific hierarchies of values. In particular, manifestations of benevolent sexism (Glick and Fiske 1996, 1997, 2001) can be perceived as a social boon, not a social ill, both because they are experienced as positive, and because they reward behaviors that maintain social stability. One of the strongest social institutions that create and justify specific hierarchies of values is religion. In this paper, we examine how the values inherent in religious beliefs (perhaps inadvertently) propagate an unequal status quo between men and women through endorsement of ideologies linked to benevolent sexism. In a survey with a convenience sample of train passengers in Southern and Eastern Poland (N = 180), we investigated the relationship between Catholic religiosity and sexist attitudes. In line with previous findings (Gaunt 2012; Glick et al. 2002a; Taşdemir and Sakallı-Uğurlu 2010), results suggest that religiosity can be linked to endorsement of benevolent sexism. This relationship was mediated in our study by the values of conservatism and openness to change (Schwartz 1992): religious individuals appear to value the societal status quo, tradition, and conformity, which leads them to perceive women through the lens of traditional social roles. Adhering to the teachings of a religion that promotes family values in general seems to have as its byproduct an espousal of prejudicial attitudes toward specific members of the family.

The features of expression of Catholic religiosity in early youth

The features of expression of Catholic religiosity in early youth