Forming Consciences into Collective Parish Actions: Catholic Parishioners’ Struggles for Institutional Change

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 progressiv...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Sharma, Lucas S. (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
Vérifier la disponibilité: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Publié: 2024
Dans: Review of religious research
Année: 2024, Volume: 66, Numéro: 4, Pages: 354-375
Sujets non-standardisés:B Sexuality
B Catholicism
B Parishes
B Religious Change
Accès en ligne: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Résumé: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.
ISSN:2211-4866
Contient:Enthalten in: Review of religious research
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0034673X241233590