Michele Dillon
Biographic Data
| ID | 3685248 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michele Dillon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michele |
| FAMILY NAME | Dillon |
| SIGNATURE | DILLON M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of New Hampshire |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8484-5999 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 66 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 166 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 65 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
‘God Is in the World’: Navigating Doctrinal Ideas and Secular Realities
This paper explores the tension confronted by the Catholic Church as it seeks to maintain relevance amid accelerating secularism. The author introduces the concept of postsecularity, and the opportunity and challenge it presents for the Church as it navigates the current moment and its own institutional identity and public relevance. Focusing on Francis’s papacy, the author highlights the pope’s appreciation of everyday secular realities and how,…
Climate Change and the Common Good: The Catholic Church’s Postsecular Relevance
Amid increased global concern about climate change and intensified political polarization, the Catholic Church is well positioned to bring public attention to environmental ecology and the common good. Public Catholicism finds renewed opportunity with post-secularity and the expanded space it creates for moderate religious actors to articulate ethical grounds for collective actions toward remedying societal problems. Focusing primarily on Laudato…
Can Synodality Ferment an Inclusive Catholicism
This article discusses the significance of the extensive data-gathering procedures incorporated into recent synodal preparations and how they advance Pope Francis’s commitment to forging a church informed by a dialogue between theological ideas and empirical realities. Drawing on my prior case analysis of the Synod on the Family, I argue that despite the limits in place then on lay participation in the formal synod discussions, the diversity of t…
Abortion as a Social Problem
The incidence and scope of abortion vary widely across the globe, and far from being a settled legal issue is contingent on the vagaries of the political and cultural environment. Most notably, in 2022 the US Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, thus dramatically altering the state‐by‐state map on abortion policy. Other countries, by contrast (e.g., Argentina, Benin, Republic of Ireland) have recently ex…
Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion: Shaping Belief and Belonging, 1945–2021, by Abby DAY
Journal Article Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion: Shaping Belief and Belonging, 1945–2021, by ABBY DAY Get access Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion: Shaping Belief and Belonging, 1945–2021, by Abby Day. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022, 233 pp; 90$ (hardcover). Michele Dillon Michele Dillon University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar S…
The Coexistence of Faith and Reason: Habermas’ Theoretical Framework of the Post-Secular Society
The Post-Secular Society is a project put forward by Habermas as a critique of modern secularism. Habermas envisions this project as a via media—a mediating force between religious fundamentalism and excessive secularism. He argues that religious citizens can translate their religious discourses into a generally-accessible language that would enable them to discuss and communicate with their secular counterparts. This theory provides itself as an…
Postsecular Catholicism
Amid increased secularization, there is new appreciation for the relevance of moderate religion, such as Catholicism, in redirecting the ethical commitments of contemporary society. The postsecular affirmation of the mutual significance of religious and secular resources provides the Church with a renewed opportunity for engagement with public societal issues and for institutional revitalization among Catholics. It requires, however, a dialogue b…
The Church’s Postsecular Moment
This chapter shows that Pope Francis is reorienting the Church’s engagement with secular society, through both his prioritization of societal issues and his communicative style. It presents case analyses of his exhortation on economic inequality ( Joy of the Gospel ), and his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’— interventions that accord well with contrite modernity’s look to moderate religion for ethical guidance. The chapter shows how Fr…
Contrite Modernity, Contrite Catholicism
This chapter explains the book’s objective in probing how contemporary Catholicism grapples with the challenge of maintaining relevance amid increased secularization. It discusses the theoretical and empirical context for the book’s inquiry and its anchoring in American Catholicism and society. The chapter explains why Jurgen Habermas’s construct of contrite modernity opens up new lines of dialogue and action for the Church in light of contempora…
The Synod on the Family
This chapter provides a case analysis of the Catholic Church’s Synod on the Family, an assembly of bishops convened in Rome in October 2014 and October 2015, to address the changing nature of Catholics’ lived experiences of marriage and family life. The chapter argues that the Synod can be considered a postsecular event owing to its deft negotiation of the mutual relevance of doctrinal ideas and Catholic secular realities. It shows how its extens…
The Church’s Dilemma
This chapter presents a thematic analysis of official Church discourse on sex and gender—issues central to Catholicism and, beyond religion, publicly salient to contemporary questions of personal identity and social relationships. Focusing on abortion, same-sex relationships, and women’s ordination, it assesses the postsecular attunement of the Church’s respective arguments, and it notes the continuities between its reasoning on abortion and on s…
Postsecular Catholicism: Relevance and Renewal
This chapter uses Pope Francis’s exhortation Amoris Laetitia ( AL ), his response to the Synod on the Family, to conclude the book’s analysis. I concentrate on AL because its content and reception allow me to summarize how Francis amplifies the Church’s postsecular relevance. I highlight the tensions at issue, especially over interpretive authority, and how the Church’s “scandal avoidance” dictum requires a bifurcation of Catholics’ lived identit…
Beheading the Saint: Nationalism, Religion, and Secularism in Quebec, by GeneviÈVE ZUBRZYCKI
The dramatic nature of social change in Quebec is a fascinating story skillfully told by Geneviève Zubrzycki in this beautifully written and deeply researched book, Beheading the Saint: Nationalism, Religion, and Secularism in Quebec. The secularization of Quebec is dramatic in two senses. It occurred in a relatively compressed interval, conveyed for example by the fact that the birth rate dropped from 4.0 to 2.09 within the space of 12 years (be…
Macro–Micro Split
This entry reviews the centrality of macro‐level analysis to the discipline of sociology, and its predominance in sociological theory and social research methodologies. Theoretical perspectives that draw attention to the micro‐dynamics of social life are discussed, as is the difficulty in demarcating the boundaries between macro and micro levels. As highlighted, several theorists transcend this split and in doing so demonstrate the importance of …
Postsecular Society
Postsecularism was construed by Jurgen Habermas to convey the new societal consciousness necessary to deal with the failures of, a now contrite, modernity. The construct recognizes that religion persists in secularized societies and has ethical resources that can be used to reroute the Enlightenment vision of social progress back on track. This entry notes the shift in Habermas's thinking from his earlier emphasis that religion has no place in th…
Abortion as a Social Problem
Abortion has been legal in the United States and in most Western European countries since the early 1970s. In 2013, following years of protracted debate and minor changes in access to abortion, the Republic of Ireland legalized abortion in cases where the woman's life is threatened (including from the risk of suicide). Meanwhile, in Spain, a government proposal to restrict abortion encountered widespread public opposition. Restrictions on abortio…
Assessing Reverence in Contexts: A Positive Emotion Related to Psychological Functioning
Deeply rooted in Western and Eastern civilization, reverence is a cardinal virtue that embraces meaning and purpose in life. It is also a self-transcending positive emotion, associated with specific worldviews that may determine the context in which an individual senses it. To date, few psychological studies have addressed this concept. To address the gap, we drew two different study samples to validate a contextualized Sense of Reverence scale (…
Religion, Sociology of
The sociology of religion is a core component of the discipline. It is central to the substantive and methodological questions discussed in the classical theorizing of Max Weber and Émile Durkheim and it comprises one of the more researched areas of inquiry among contemporary sociologists. The sociology of religion is concerned with the multiple ways in which religion is part of human society and how it influences and is embedded in institutional…
Sacred Divorce: Religion, Therapeutic Culture, and Ending Life Partnerships
The Connection of Soul (COS) scale: An assessment tool for afterlife perspectives in different worldviews
Despite the evidence that belief in afterlife has positive implications for psychosocial functioning, there is a paucity of empirical research and measures reflecting diverse worldviews regarding literal immortality. We reported findings on a newly developed Connection of Soul (COS) scale reflecting 3 dominant worldviews conceptualizing a soul’s life after death, involving 2 perspectives of literal immortality and 1 secular perspective. Study 1 s…
Religion and Regimes: Support, Separation, and Opposition
Introduction: Comparative Religious Politics Mehran Tamadonfar and Ted G. Jelen Chapter 1: A Tangled Web: Religion and the Regime in the United States Rachel Blum and Clyde Wilcox Chapter 2: Religion and Regimes in Brazil and Chile Christine A. Gustafson Chapter 3: From Atheism to Establishment? The Evolution of Church-State Relations in Russia Christopher Marsh Chapter 4: Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State Elizabeth A. Oldmixon and Rebekah …
Asynchrony in Attitudes Toward Abortion and Gay Rights: The Challenge to Values Alignment
Political commentators tend to assume that Americans who share a particular religious affiliation think similarly about values issues and that values questions are aligned. Although religious affiliation is a strong predictor of attitudes toward abortion and gay rights, there is differentiation within denominational subgroups with respect to both; for example, while majorities of mainline Protestants and Catholics favor gay marriage, many of thei…
Religion Contextualized
A Sociological Approach to Questions about Religious Diversity
Religiousness, spirituality, and psychosocial functioning in late adulthood: Findings from a longitudinal study
This study used longitudinal data to examine the relations among religiousness, spirituality, and 3 key domains of psychosocial functioning in late adulthood: (a) sources of well-being, (b) involvement in tasks of everyday life, and (c) generativity and wisdom. Religiousness and spirituality were operationalized as distinct but overlapping dimensions of individual difference. In late adulthood, religiousness was positively related to well-being f…
Is Spirituality Detrimental to Generativity
This article examines the relations between religiousness, spirituality, and generativity (concern for the welfare of future generations) in late adulthood using longitudinal life-course data. Religiousness and spirituality were operationalized as distinct but overlapping dimensions of individual difference measuring involvement in traditional and nontraditional religious practices, respectively. In late adulthood, both religiousness and spiritua…
Pierre Bourdieu, Religion, and Cultural Production
Recent years have seen increased emphasis on the autonomy of human agency in creating meaning in everyday life. The institutional bias in sociology, however, and its concomitant emphasis on social reproduction rather than change favors hierarchical approaches to cultural production. This is apparent in the theorizing even of sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu who emphasize the cultural dynamism of religion and other meaning systems. This articl…
Religiousness, spirituality, and psychosocial functioning in late adulthood: Findings from a longitudinal study
This study used longitudinal data to examine the relations among religiousness, spirituality, and 3 key domains of psychosocial functioning in late adulthood: (a) sources of well-being, (b) involvement in tasks of everyday life, and (c) generativity and wisdom. Religiousness and spirituality were operationalized as distinct but overlapping dimensions of individual difference. In late adulthood, religiousness was positively related to well-being f…
Cultural Differences in the Abortion Discourse of the Catholic Church: Evidence from Four Countries
This essay investigates the cultural themes used by the Catholic Church in arguing against abortion in four different countries: Ireland, Poland, the U.S., and England & Wales. The focus is whether the Church differentiates its use of cultural arguments in accordance with its insider/outsider institutional status, or the contested nature of the abortion policy-making environment. The prevalence of women-oriented themes is also explored. I find th…
Religiousness, Spiritual Seeking, and Authoritarianism: Findings from a Longitudinal Study
We use long-term longitudinal data from a sample (N = 155) of older age mainline Protestants, Catholics, and a small number of conservative Protestants to investigate the relations among church-centered religiousness, spiritual seeking, and authoritarianism. In late adulthood, religiousness was related positively, and spiritual seeking was related negatively, to authoritarianism; these relations held even after excluding conservative Protestants …
Spiritual Seeking, Narcissism, and Psychotherapy: How Are They Related
This study used data from a long-term longitudinal study of men and women to examine the relations among spirituality, narcissism, and psychotherapy. The findings indicated that in late adulthood (age late 60s/mid 70s) spirituality was related to autonomous or healthy narcissism but was unrelated to willful (overt) or hypersensitive (covert) narcissism, two pathological forms of the construct. Autonomy in early adulthood (age 30s) was a significa…
Argumentative Complexity of Abortion Discourse
Journal Article ARGUMENTATIVE COMPLEXITY OF ABORTION DISCOURSE Get access MICHELE DILLON MICHELE DILLON assistant professor of sociology Yale University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 57, Issue 3, Fall 1993, Pages 305–314, https://doi.org/10.1086/269377 Published: 01 January 1993
The Authority of the Holy Revisited: Habermas, Religion, and Emancipatory Possibilities
This article argues that Jürgen Habermas's view of religion as anathema to rational critical discourse reflects his misunderstanding that religion comprises a monolithic and immutable body of dogma that is closed to reason. Illustrative data from Catholic history and theology and empirical data gathered from contemporary American Catholics are used to show the weaknesses in Habermas's negation of the possibility of a self-critical religious disco…
Asynchrony in Attitudes Toward Abortion and Gay Rights: The Challenge to Values Alignment
Political commentators tend to assume that Americans who share a particular religious affiliation think similarly about values issues and that values questions are aligned. Although religious affiliation is a strong predictor of attitudes toward abortion and gay rights, there is differentiation within denominational subgroups with respect to both; for example, while majorities of mainline Protestants and Catholics favor gay marriage, many of thei…
Handbook of the Sociology of Religion
This Handbook showcases research and thinking in the sociology of religion. The contributors, all active writers and researchers in the area, provide original chapters focusing on select aspects of their own engagement with the field. Aimed at students and scholars who want to know more about the sociology of religion, this handbook also provides a resource for sociologists in general by integrating broader questions of sociology (e.g. demography…
Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland
In 1986 a national opinion poll indicated that over half of Irish voters favored an upcoming referendum to remove the constitutional ban on divorce. Yet, after nine weeks of vigorous debate during which forces on both sides of the issue presented their cases to the public, the amendment was defeated.In Debating Divorce, Michele Dillon uses the divorce referendum debate in Ireland as a base from which to explore the long-standing sociological preo…
Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland
The Persistence of Religious Identity among College Catholics
This paper reports that the manifestations of Catholic identity among undergraduates at a private, nondenominational, northeastern university replicate the patterns of communal loyalty evident for Catholics as a whole. The study focuses on the ways in which church attendance differentiates moral and sociopolitical attitudes and values, and also examines whether gender is a significant source of cultural variation. The data used in the analyses ar…
Assessing Reverence in Contexts: A Positive Emotion Related to Psychological Functioning
Deeply rooted in Western and Eastern civilization, reverence is a cardinal virtue that embraces meaning and purpose in life. It is also a self-transcending positive emotion, associated with specific worldviews that may determine the context in which an individual senses it. To date, few psychological studies have addressed this concept. To address the gap, we drew two different study samples to validate a contextualized Sense of Reverence scale (…
Politics and Religion in Central and Eastern Europe: Traditions and Transitions
Tables and Figures Preface Traditions and Transitions: Reflections on the Problems and Prospects for Religions in Eastern and Central Europe by Roberto Cipriani Religio-Nationalist Subcultures in the Soviet Union: Comparisons and Conceptual Refinements by Hank Johnston Religion in Post-Communist Countries: A Comparative Study of Religiousness in Byelorussia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Poland by Irena Borowik The New Europe and the Value Orie…
Institutional Legitimation and Abortion: Monitoring the Catholic Church's Discourse
Focusing on institutional legitimation, this study analyzes the abortion policy statements of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) issued in three public fora (general public, Congress, and the Supreme Court) during the time of two landmark cases, Roe (1973-1976) and Webster (1989-1992). The study explores whether the NCCB responds to shifts in the abortion policy environment by varying its self- presentation on abortion generally o…
Religion Contextualized
The Catholic Church and Possible 'Organizational Selves: The Implications for Institutional Change
Michele Dillon, The Catholic Church and Possible "Organizational Selves": The Implications for Institutional Change, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), pp. 386-397
Rome and American Catholics
This article considers the paradox evidenced by American Catholics' simultaneous rejection of papal teaching and their enduring commitment to Rome. This issue is explored by focusing on one group of apparently anomalous Catholics, members of the Women's Ordination Conference (WOC), who contest Vatican opposition to women priests. It is suggested that the legitimation narratives that WOC members use to validate their identity as Catholics committe…
Hierarchical Structures and Social Value: The Creation of Black and Irish Identities in the United States
The Politics of Irish Social Policy, 1600-1990. Frederick W. Powell
Argumentative Complexity of Abortion Discourse
Journal Article ARGUMENTATIVE COMPLEXITY OF ABORTION DISCOURSE Get access MICHELE DILLON MICHELE DILLON assistant professor of sociology Yale University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 57, Issue 3, Fall 1993, Pages 305–314, https://doi.org/10.1086/269377 Published: 01 January 1993
Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland
Religion and Culture in Tension: The Abortion Discourses of the U. S. Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention
Michele Dillon, Religion and Culture in Tension: The Abortion Discourses of the U. S. Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention, Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer, 1995), pp. 159-180
Religion and Culture in Tension: The Abortion Discourses of the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention
Sociologists increasingly emphasize the systemic openness of religious organizations to their environment. Mark Kowalewski argues that the Catholic church, for example, engages in a “limited accommodation” with the broader culture in order to “rein in the forces of change and to keep modernizing elements under the control of the existing power elite.” Others suggest that the church manages its multiple identities across diverse audiences by artic…
Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland
Journal Article Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland, by Michele Dillon. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1993, 218 pp. $25.00 (hbk) Get access Susan A. Farrell Susan A. Farrell Kingsborough Community College, CUNY Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Sociology of Religion, Volume 56, Issue 4, Winter 1995, Pages 452–453, https://doi.org/10.2307/3712206 Published: 01 December 1995
Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland
In 1986 a national opinion poll indicated that over half of Irish voters favored an upcoming referendum to remove the constitutional ban on divorce. Yet, after nine weeks of vigorous debate during which forces on both sides of the issue presented their cases to the public, the amendment was defeated.In Debating Divorce, Michele Dillon uses the divorce referendum debate in Ireland as a base from which to explore the long-standing sociological preo…
Institutional Legitimation and Abortion: Monitoring the Catholic Church's Discourse
Focusing on institutional legitimation, this study analyzes the abortion policy statements of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) issued in three public fora (general public, Congress, and the Supreme Court) during the time of two landmark cases, Roe (1973-1976) and Webster (1989-1992). The study explores whether the NCCB responds to shifts in the abortion policy environment by varying its self- presentation on abortion generally o…
Occasions of Faith: An Anthropology of Irish Catholics
Devotional occasions or experiences by Irish Catholics form the crux of this powerful, first book-length anthropological study of Irish Catholicism. Rich in ethnographical material, wide-ranging archival sources, insightful cultural observations, vivid accounts of individual experiences, and thoughtful scrutiny of religious questions and theories illuminate twenty years of ethnographic fieldwork. From these varied resources Lawrence Taylor create…
Politics and Religion in Central and Eastern Europe: Traditions and Transitions
Tables and Figures Preface Traditions and Transitions: Reflections on the Problems and Prospects for Religions in Eastern and Central Europe by Roberto Cipriani Religio-Nationalist Subcultures in the Soviet Union: Comparisons and Conceptual Refinements by Hank Johnston Religion in Post-Communist Countries: A Comparative Study of Religiousness in Byelorussia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Poland by Irena Borowik The New Europe and the Value Orie…
Reform, Revolution and Reaction: Archbishop John Thomas Troy and the Catholic Church in Ireland 1787-1817
Cultural Differences in the Abortion Discourse of the Catholic Church: Evidence from Four Countries
This essay investigates the cultural themes used by the Catholic Church in arguing against abortion in four different countries: Ireland, Poland, the U.S., and England & Wales. The focus is whether the Church differentiates its use of cultural arguments in accordance with its insider/outsider institutional status, or the contested nature of the abortion policy-making environment. The prevalence of women-oriented themes is also explored. I find th…
The Persistence of Religious Identity among College Catholics
This paper reports that the manifestations of Catholic identity among undergraduates at a private, nondenominational, northeastern university replicate the patterns of communal loyalty evident for Catholics as a whole. The study focuses on the ways in which church attendance differentiates moral and sociopolitical attitudes and values, and also examines whether gender is a significant source of cultural variation. The data used in the analyses ar…
Rome and American Catholics
This article considers the paradox evidenced by American Catholics' simultaneous rejection of papal teaching and their enduring commitment to Rome. This issue is explored by focusing on one group of apparently anomalous Catholics, members of the Women's Ordination Conference (WOC), who contest Vatican opposition to women priests. It is suggested that the legitimation narratives that WOC members use to validate their identity as Catholics committe…
Veiled Threats: The Logic of Popular Catholicism in Italy
Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith, and Power
It has been well documented that American Catholics tend to be Catholics on their own terms, or choose to remain Catholic while selectively embracing official Church doctrine. But why do Catholics who disagree with official Church teachings on major issues such as homosexuality, women's ordination, or abortion, and are thus institutionally marginalized, choose to remain Catholic? Why do they stay, when the cost of staying and being stigmatized wo…
Disquiet in the Land: Cultural Conflict in American Mennonite Communities
The Catholic Church and Possible 'Organizational Selves: The Implications for Institutional Change
Michele Dillon, The Catholic Church and Possible "Organizational Selves": The Implications for Institutional Change, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Sep., 1999), pp. 386-397
The Authority of the Holy Revisited: Habermas, Religion, and Emancipatory Possibilities
This article argues that Jürgen Habermas's view of religion as anathema to rational critical discourse reflects his misunderstanding that religion comprises a monolithic and immutable body of dogma that is closed to reason. Illustrative data from Catholic history and theology and empirical data gathered from contemporary American Catholics are used to show the weaknesses in Habermas's negation of the possibility of a self-critical religious disco…
Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600-1998: The Mote and the Beam
Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith and Power
Conservative Protestant Politics
The Catholic Imagination
Pierre Bourdieu, Religion, and Cultural Production
Recent years have seen increased emphasis on the autonomy of human agency in creating meaning in everyday life. The institutional bias in sociology, however, and its concomitant emphasis on social reproduction rather than change favors hierarchical approaches to cultural production. This is apparent in the theorizing even of sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu who emphasize the cultural dynamism of religion and other meaning systems. This articl…
Sociology (51 works) · Political science (36 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (34 works) · Philosophy (31 works) · Law (26 works) · Politics (21 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (18 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (16 works) · Epistemology (16 works) · Religious studies (14 works)