American Parishes
Remaking Local Catholicism
This book can be opened with
Parishes are the missing middle in studies of American Catholicism. Between individual Catholics and a global institution, the thousands of local parishes are where Catholicism gets remade. American Parishes showcases what social forces shape parishes, what parishes do, how they do it, and what this says about the future of Catholicism in the United States. Expounding an embedded field approach, this book displays the numerous forces currently reshaping American parishes. It draws from sociology of religion, culture, organizations, and race to illuminate basic parish processes, like leadership and education, and ongoing parish struggles like conflict and multiculturalism.
American Parishes brings together contemporary data, methods, and questions to establish a sociological re-engagement with Catholic parishes and a Catholic re-engagement with sociological analysis. Contributions by leading social scientists highlight how community, geography, and authority intersect within parishes. It illuminates and analyzes how growing racial diversity, an aging religious population, and neighborhood change affect the inner workings of parishes.
Contributors: Gary J. Adler Jr., Nancy Ammerman, Mary Jo Bane, Tricia C. Bruce, John A. Coleman, S.J., Kathleen Garces-Foley, Mary Gray, Brett Hoover, Courtney Ann Irby, Tia Noelle Pratt, and Brian Starks
Led off by a very helpful introduction, the essays in this volume, while addressing various dimensions of U.S. parishes, all exhibit a firm grounding in the broader scholarly literature, plenty of sociological insights, and writing that is both accessible and engaging. This is a terrific, much-needed collection that, in my estimation, deserves a wide readership.—Jerome P. Baggett, Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith
The value of a book like this—one that is synthetic and balanced—shows the Church in its weakness. It also helps undercut our assumptions of the Church in the United States as either a monolith or as a set of discrete units. The authors seek to provide deep insights into the direction of the Church... The book forces us to ask hard questions when faced with some glaringly troublesome data. Do we cower or address it? Do we ask whether those in authority are somehow hindering growth by being stuck in conceptions of the Church taken from bygone eras? Are we being faithful to the Gospel by organizing ourselves into the kinds of parishes that we have, or is there a way to be better?—Catholic Library World
This book is an important step forward...—Catholic Books Review
Gary J. Adler, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University.
Tricia C. Bruce (Edited By)
Tricia C. Bruce is Associate Professor of Sociology at Maryville College and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Brian Starks (Edited By)
Brian Starks is Associate Professor of Sociology at Kennesaw State University.
Introduction: What Is a Parish? Why Look at Catholic Parishes?
Gary J. Adler Jr., Tricia C. Bruce, and Brian Starks | 1
Part I : Seeing Parishes Through a Sociological Lens
1. A Brief History of the Sociology of Parishes in the United States
Tricia C. Bruce | 25
2. Studying Parishes: Lessons and New Directions from the Study of Congregations
Nancy T. Ammerman | 47
Part II: Parish Trends
3. The Shifting Landscape of US Catholic Parishes, 1998–2012
Gary J. Adler Jr. | 69
4. Stable Transformation: Catholic Parishioners in the United States
Mark M. Gray | 95
Part III: Race, Class, and Diversity in Parish Life
5. Power in the Parish
Brett C. Hoover | 111
6. Liturgy as Identity Work in Predominantly African American Parishes
Tia Noelle Pratt | 132
7. A House Divided
Mary Jo Bane | 153
Part IV: Young Catholics In (and Out) of Parishes
8. Parishes as Homes and Hubs
Kathleen Garces-Foley | 173
9. Preparing to Say “I Do”
Courtney Ann Irby | 196
Part V : The Practice and Future of a Sociology of Catholic Parishes
10. A Sociologist Looks at His Own Parish: A Conversation with John A. Coleman, SJ
John A. Coleman, SJ, with editors Gary J. Adler Jr., Tricia C. Bruce, and Brian Starks | 217
Conclusion: Parishes as the Embedded Middle of American Catholicism
Gary J. Adler Jr., Tricia C. Bruce, and Brian Starks | 231
Acknowledgments | 247
List of Contributors | 249
Index | 253