The Spirit's Tether

Family, Work, and Religion among American Catholics

Bibliographic Data

ID19974081
AuthorsMary Ellen Konieczny (corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages320
Publication date2013-08-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueSpirit's Tether (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199965779.001.0001
OpenAlexW4247044930
Open LibraryOL28507066M
ISBN9780199965779
LanguageEN
Citations received24

Cultural conflicts about the family, such as so-called ‘culture wars’ debates concerning abortion and same-sex marriage, have intensified over the last few decades among US Catholics, and among American citizens generally. These conflicts comprise much of the substance of the moral polarization that currently characterizes our public politics. Scholars have demonstrated the importance of the media in their endurance, along with the important role played by religious elites. But less is known about how individuals in local religious experience and participate in them. Why are these conflicts so resonant among ordinary Americans, and Catholics in particular? By exploring how religion and family life are intertwined in local parish settings, this book strives to understand how and why Catholics are divided around these conflicts. It presents a close and detailed ethnographic analysis of the families and local religious cultures in two Catholic parishes: religiously conservative Our Lady of the Assumption Church and theologically progressive St. Brigitta Church. Through an examination of parish life together with the faith stories of parishioners, it reveals how two congregational social processes—the practice of central ecclesial metaphors, and the construction of Catholic identities—matter for the ways in which parishioners work out the routines of marriage, childrearing and work-family balance, as well as to the ways they connect these challenges to the public politics of the family. The analysis further demonstrates that these institutional processes promote polarization among Catholics through practices that unintentionally fragment the Catholic tradition in local settings

Ethnography · Faith · Family values · Polarization (electrochemistry) · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Catholic church · doctrines · Families · Family · Religious aspects · united states

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