Are Catholics practices changing?
The quick answer: Yes, rapidly in a consistent and identifiable pattern. The longer answer: The new book, American Catholics: Gender, Generation, and Commitment, provides clear evidence of changing trends among American Catholics from the time of Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1987 to the time just before the new millennium. As the book’s title suggests, gender, generation, and commitment prove to be the three key variables impacting the findings. Most analysts, and newspaper columnists use Mass attendance as their measure of commitment to the Church. Using a more stringent three item index, the authors measured the level of individual commitment to the Roman Catholic Church. To create this commitment scale, they combined: • Mass attendance, • One’s attitude toward leaving the Church, and • a person’s evaluation of the Church as an important part of his or her life.
