Joseph H. Fichter

The Profile of Catholic Religious Life

Religious practices vary according to the age and sex of church participants. Three types of religious observance by 8,363 white urban southern Roman Catholics are employed as criteria of comparison between the sexes and among ten-year age categories. The highest record on all three criteria is found in the ten to nineteen year group; the lowest is in the thirty to thirty-nine year group. Religious observance improves in each subsequent decade, but the oldest people never quite reach the record of the youngest. Analysis of the differentials in religious practices shows that age must be combined with sex, schooling, marital status, parenthood, economic roles, health, and other circumstances.