William V. D'Antonio

Autonomy and Democracy in an Autocratic Organization: The Case of the Roman Catholic Church

This article examines data from surveys, historical records, position papers, minutes of group meetings, and other sources to shed light on the ways the laity of the Roman Catholic church in the United States are bringing about change, often in spite of the hierarchy and Vatican bureaucracy. A range of traditional teachings and policies focusing on sexuality, marage, the priesthood, the locus of authority, and participation in decision making within church organizations, are examined in the light of Gallup surveys carried out nationally in 1987 and 1993. These data plus the qualitative data indicate the existence of a pluralism that pits the magisterium (teaching authority located in the Vatican) and most of the American bishops on one side and a growing majority of laity on the other. This pluralism raises questions about the possibilities for organizational change within the Church in America.

Nibbling at the Core.

knowledge that can be identified as the core of sociology, which can be introduced to the student at the introductory level. It embodies theories, methods, and findings from research based on these theories and using these methods. But how we teach introductory sociology is as important as what we teach. Thus, sociology should be taught in small sections; students should be required to do a great amount of writing, and the classroom should provide ample opportunity for the students to interact with the instructor in informal but structured settings. Students learn by doing, and our task as educators is to recapture the introductory course to make of it a critical intellectual experience.

Ecology, Society, and the Quality of Social Life.

The twelve contributors to this volume, from ten different nations, are world-renowned sociologists who examine problems of ecology and world resources as they affect the quality of social life. Three different perspectives are employed: high technology, industrialization, and the problems of development; restructuring and alternatives of development; and social movements and social policies.

Religion, ideal family size, and abortion: extending Renzi's hypothesis.

Recent research has noted a negative relationship between ideal family size (IFS) and proabortion attitudes (AA) which is independent of religious affiliation. The present investigation extends the investigation of this relationship in several ways. First, we find considerable variation in abortion attitudes among the Protestant denominations; this finding warrants a denomination-specific analysis. Second, controlling for religious affiliation within Protestantism, we find numerous examples of the spuriousness of the IFS-AA relationship. Third, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding abortion is found to have limited impact on the number of significant associations between IFS and AA. At the same time, for most denominations, IFS remains a significant predictor of AA. Fourth, we assess the importance of IFS relative to seven other independent variables in a multiple regression analysis and find that IFS is a significant predictor of an index of overall abortion attitudes. While Renzi’s hypothesis is therefore successfully extended in each stage of this analysis, numerous exceptions appear, particularly for denominations with strong proabortion sentiments. Finally, we note that IFS may have a limited history as a predictor variable if a national consensus emerges around the two child family.

Protestant and Catholic Perceptions of Church Structure

Although the structure of socioreligious groups receives frequent mention in the sociological literature, systematic analysis of church polity has been generally lacking. The authors draw hypotheses from the congregational, presbyterian, and episcopal models to examine Protestant and Catholic perceptions of 7 components of church structure. The data are taken from a study of fourteen Protestant and Catholic con-gregations in two Oklahoma communities. Responses to 7 original questionnlaire items indicate that Protestants aind Catholics perceived Protestan-t churches as democratic anld the Catholic chuLrch as hierarchical. The authors suggest that the current conceptualizations of the congregational, presbyterian, and episcopal models of church structure are inadequate, but can be used to guide further research, which may either refine these models or lead to the development of alternative orientations to the study of church structure.

Community Leadership in an Economic Crisis: Testing Ground for Ideological Cleavage

Among the relatively unexplored problems involved in community decision-making, one that may be expected to receive increasing attention in the years ahead concerns the increasing penetration of the federal government into local affairs. This study examines some facets of that problem in the face of an economic crisis and a political turn toward conservative Republicans in South Bend, Indiana. The departure of the Studebaker Corporation in December, 1963, followed very closely on the heels of an upset Republican sweep of local political offices. The data indicate that attitudinal differences about the role of the federal government in local affairs to distinguish community leaders who are Republicans from those who are Democrats. However, the findings also show that attitudes are not so strongly held as to prevent the local leaders, Republicans as well as Democrats, from being able to accept federal aid programs in such areas as housing, urban renewal, and manpower retraining. Attitudes between Democrats and Republicans may be statistically but not sociologically significant.

Religion, Dogmatism, and Community Leadership: An Extension of the Theories of The Open and Closed Mind

Personality structure as developed in the work of Milton Rokeach is used to examine the relationship between religion and political decision making. The personality structures of local community leaders are established and related to variables in addition to religion. The findings show that the relationship between Catholicism and closed mindedness is not as broadly true as it seemed in earlier studies, and that what influence Catholicism did have in developing closed mindedness does not spring from something intrinsic to the religion itself.

Protestantism and Assimilation among Mexican Americans: An Exploratory Study of Ministers' Reports

Americans may articulate with the dominant society and facilitate the assimilation of their members. The data reflect the perceptions of a purposive sample of Protestant ministers of Mexican-American congregations in El Paso. Three types of ministers are constructed, and the assimilative role of each is discussed. The general conclusions are that church-sect and Protestant ethic theoretical formulations may be profitably applied to the analysis of the Mexican Americans; the most sect-like groups may socialize members into a latently assimilative ethic of personal reform, while the more ehurchlike groups are manifestly assimilating members into an ethic of social adjustment to a complex society. In addition, there is evidence of the assimilation of the churches themselves as they move into middle class society.