William D. Dinges

Christian pilgrimage in modern Western Europe

Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe is a commanding exploration of the importance of religious shrines in modern Roman Catholicism. By analyzing more than 6,000 active shrines and contemporary patterns of pilgrimage to them, the authors establish the cultural significance of a religious tradition that today touches the lives of millions of people. Roman Catholic pilgrimage sites in Western Europe range from obscure chapels and holy wells that draw visitors only from their immediate vicinity to the world-famous, often-thronged shrines at Rome, Lourdes, and Fatima. These shrines generate at least 70 million religiously motivated visits each year, with total annual visitation exceeding 100 million. Substantial numbers of pilgrims at major shrines come from the Americas and other areas outside Western Europe. Mary Lee Nolan and Sidney Nolan describe and interpret the dimensions of Western European pilgrimage in time and space, a cultural-geographic approach that reveals regional variations in types of shrines and pilgrimages in the sixteen countries of Western Europe. They examine numerous legends and historical accounts associated with cult images and shrines, showing how these reflect ideas about humanity, divinity, and environment. The Nolans demonstrate that the dynamic fluctuations in Christian pilgrimage activities over the past 2,000 years reflect socioeconomic changes and technological transformations as well as shifting intellectual orientations. Increases and decreases in the number of shrines established coincide with major turning points in European history, for pilgrimage, no less than wars, revolutions, and the advent of urban-industrial society, is an integral part of that history. Pilgrimage traditions have been influenced by -- and have influenced -- science, literature, philosophy, and the arts. Christian Pilgrimage in Modern Western Europe is based on ten years of research. The Nolans collected information on 6,150 shrines from published material, correspondence with bishops and shrine administrators, and interviews. They visited 852 Western European shrines in person. Their book will be of interest to many general readers and of special value to historians, cultural geographers, students of comparative religion, anthropologists, social psychologists, and shrine administrators.

The Religious Situation in American Society – Contemporary Trends, Global Implications

I contend that the actual situation is overstated. Polling and survey data point to high levels of American religious belief and behavior. However, these numbers are of limited significance. They do not represent nuanced data. They do not capture social and historical contexts. Nor do they shed light on affiliation that is more cultural than religious and more an expression of compliance behavior than religious authenticity. Nor, as other scholars have pointed out, do statistics tell us what people really mean when they claim to be “religious,” or how their religious beliefs and behaviors change over time. Having said this, I am not arguing here that America is postreligious, or post-Christian, or that religion no longer plays a formative role in individual lives or American culture. It does. The situation, however, may not be as wholly religious as is currently assumed.

Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America’s Largest Church

a phenomenon which is usually labelled ‘paganism’ or ‘neo-paganism’. This particular trend is strong in Lithuania and cannot be understood without reference to a certain nationalist tendency. Indeed, the religious diversity in Lithuania can be interpreted as an on-going negotiation of—or fight over— cultural identities. The past two decades have fundamentally changed Lithuania, a change mirrored in the new multi-religious reality of the country. In terms of scholarship pertaining to religion, the emerging change is reflected in the rising scientific expertise. The present volume is a fine example of this.

Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith & Politics after the Religious Right (review)

F or breakfast devotees of the editorial page of the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne’s voice is a familiar one. He writes broadly in line with liberal democratic thinking, consistently brings moral and political clarity to issues and, given his academically credentialed background, includes an occasional touch of sociological panache. Nor is Dionne averse to criticizing the excesses of the left in light of the Niebuhrian realism animating his own brand of liberalism. In Souled Out (and in a more recent string of editorials), Dionne focuses on what he discerns as yet another seismic shift in the public role of religion in American life. Over the last four decades, operatives of the religio-political right have abused religion, reduced its concerns to a narrow set of dogmatic issues, and sold out religion for political expediency. The ensuing stridence, partisanship, distortion of cultural symbols, and misguided religious engagement with politics is wearing thin. Since the 2004 election, an increasing number of Christians—especially right-of-center white evangelicals—are having second thoughts about a four decade-long entanglement with the nation’s political right. Those once desperate about keeping religion out of politics, and who skewered liberal enemies for “politicizing” God’s message, now ponder the possibilities of their own sins in this regard. Collaterally, a new breed of evangelical leaders like Rick Warren, Richard Cizik, Joel C. Hunter and others are embracing a new evangelical politics earmarked by a broadened political and moral agenda that includes issues like global warming, environmental degradation, and genocide. This current realignment of religion and culture occurs in an American context in which the separation of church and state has never been burdened with the kind of secular-inspired rigidity associated with “laicité” in France—where separation of the two spheres has essentially meant cleaning all semblances of religion from the public

Paper City and Southern Parish: American Catholics in Postwar Social Science Research

By the post-World War II era, the situation of much of the Euro-American Catholic population of the United States was in significant transition. Although on the surface Catholics appeared ensconced in a unified and “triumphal” Church, the slow but inexorable workings of broad social and cultural forces were reconfiguring the parameters of the Catholic engagement with American culture.1 The trajectory of Catholic assimilation in the United States through the latter half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century paralleled the emergence of the modern social and behavioral sciences. During this same period, scholars in fields such as psychology, sociology and anthropology finessed older theoretical perspectives and generated new ones (functional, conflict/consensus, interactionist). More sophisticated research techniques that imitated the methods and goals of the natural sciences developed as social science practitioners strove to become more value neutral in theory and method. By the 1920s, sociology, in particular, was moving away from a close alignment with liberal Protestantism and its impetus to ameliorate the social problems of an urban, industrial, and increasingly bureaucratized nation.2 One genre of early twentieth century social science research focused on American community studies. Scholars such as W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki,3 W. Lloyd Warner,4 Robert S. and Helen Merrell Lynd,5 H. Richard Niebuhr,6 Elin Anderson,7

Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice@@@Young Catholics at the New Millennium: The Religion and Morality of Young Adults in Western Countries

Leaders of the American Catholic community want to and need to reach out to young adults. But effective ministry to young adults means that church leaders have to understand the attitudes and the needs of the current generation of Catholics in their 20s and 30s. This is why Dean Hoge, William Dinges, Mary Johnson, and Juan Gonzales began their study of young adult Catholics. How do both European-American and Latino Catholics actually live their Catholicism? Are they alienated from the Church? Are they cynical about the Churchs moral teachings? Do they take the Popes statements seriously? Do they attend Mass? Have significant numbers left for other churches? Do they want Catholic education for their children? Seeking answers to these and other questions, Dean Hoge and his colleagues conducted a national survey in 1997, supplemented by a telephone survey and then by personal interviews with over 800 men and women across the country. The interviews put a human face on the information provided, and they form a compelling part of this timely narrative. The authors underscore observations that include the strength and tenacity of Catholic identity in spite of many challenges, the high level of personal decision-making among those interviewed and surveyed, and the readiness of young Catholics for institutional reforms.