What do you think?
Rate this book
Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith
The image of the "cafeteria Catholic" -- one who blithely picks and chooses those doctrines that suit him -- is a staple of American culture. But are American Catholics really so nonchalant about how they integrate the ancient devotional practices of Catholicism with the everyday struggles of the modern world?
For Sense of the Faithful , Jerome Baggett conducted 300 intensive interviews with members of six parishes to explore all aspects of this question. The book is an act of listening that allows ordinary Catholics to speak for themselves about how they understand their faith and how they draw upon it to find purpose in their lives.
Many American Catholics, Baggett shows, do indeed have an uneasy relationship with the official teachings of the Church and struggle to live faithfully amidst the challenges of the modern world. But Baggett finds that it is a genuine struggle, one that reveals a dynamic and self-aware relationship to the Church's teachings. Moving beyond the simplistic categories of national surveys and the politically motivated pronouncements of pundits, Sense of the Faithful ultimately paints a more complex -- and more accurate -- portrait of what it is like to be Catholic in America today.
For Sense of the Faithful , Jerome Baggett conducted 300 intensive interviews with members of six parishes to explore all aspects of this question. The book is an act of listening that allows ordinary Catholics to speak for themselves about how they understand their faith and how they draw upon it to find purpose in their lives.
Many American Catholics, Baggett shows, do indeed have an uneasy relationship with the official teachings of the Church and struggle to live faithfully amidst the challenges of the modern world. But Baggett finds that it is a genuine struggle, one that reveals a dynamic and self-aware relationship to the Church's teachings. Moving beyond the simplistic categories of national surveys and the politically motivated pronouncements of pundits, Sense of the Faithful ultimately paints a more complex -- and more accurate -- portrait of what it is like to be Catholic in America today.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 30, 2012
Baggett proposes that those who respect Catholic doctrine should indeed strive to understand its development. The purpose of his book is to “unblinkingly examine, primarily through conversation, the internal processes at work.” So - how is sausage made? According to Baggett, doctrine develops primarily through the sense of the faithful. It is a bottom-up process involving individuals and cultures. Baggett calls this “lived religion” which he privileges over the more official versions.
Baggett uses the concept of negotiation to describe the process of resolving inherited faith traditions with the prevalent American culture. The process of negotiation occurs when American Catholics blend selective elements from American culture with those of the Catholic tradition. One of the key contributions of Baggett’s book is his claim that American Catholics do not make these choices lightly, despite what some may suggest.
So how does Baggett explore this process of negotiation? He adopts a “triangulation approach” by conversing with active Catholics in six parishes in the San Francisco Bay area.
Baggett connects the dots between diverse American Catholics by analyzing four American cultural attributes: the importance of self-awareness, the selective nature by which Americans build community, the ambivalent acceptance of the larger institution and the barriers which hinder civic involvement. A sampling of the first two will suffice for this review.
Baggett identifies a number of common phrases which reflect the pervasiveness of self-awareness among all American Catholics. Using the metaphor of an archeological dig, he labels these common phrases “conversational shards.” They are indicators of the negotiation taking place within the everyday lives of American Catholics. An example of a conversational shard is “for me,” which reflects how American Catholics lessen the sharp edges of some of the teachings of the Church. Baggett finds this shard even in the most conservative American Catholic when he presses them to elaborate on initial responses. This shard points to both an awareness of the inscrutability of God as well as an awareness of the common religious thrust of humankind.
Second, Baggett explores how American Catholics choose their faith communities. Gone are the days when American Catholics attended their local neighborhood parish. They are now members of “elective parochials,” meaning they choose parishes which best meet their individual needs. Baggett utilizes sociologist Kai Erikson’s understanding of communities in order to characterize today’s parishes as hometown parishes, multi-cultural parishes and oppositional parishes. What is of note in Baggett’s analysis is that American Catholics are driven more by American culture than Catholic tradition when choosing a parish. For example, in the United States there is a strong narrative of resistance which includes a distrust of government in particular and large institutions in general. In the area of religion, this translates into adopting a principled stance on religious grounds. This analysis allows Baggett to provide the surprising insight that parishes which serve a predominately gay Catholic population and those which serve the needs of Catholics desiring a return to the Latin Mass are both in the same camp. Ironically, these American Catholics have more in common than their supposed differences. Instead of choosing a parish based upon social compatibility or ethic compatibility these American Catholics choose a parish based upon ideological compatibility. The minority of American Catholics who desire the Latin Mass are suspicious of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the perceived loss of reverence in liturgical worship and the immorality in the modern world. Using similar logic, the minority of gay Catholics gather against a homophobic church in order to protect their sense of self worth or their perceived sense of the sacred dignity of the human person. Their parishes provide the social space for their members to question and resist certain elements of tradition.
A sign of a good book is how its insights provide a framework for dialog. Baggett references Alexis de Tocqueville to show how American Catholics have altered their allegiances. Tocqueville wrote “American Catholics are both the most obedient of the faithful and the most independent of citizens.” Today, Baggett claims, American Catholics are not as obedient to official church doctrine and they are very dependent on American culture. They are no longer American Catholics. They are Catholic Americans. This shift in perspective enables Catholic Americans of all stripes to come to an honest awareness of the impact of American culture, good and bad, and look upon this as common ground.
Baggett also wonders “whether or to what extent church leaders might seriously consider the sensibilities of the American faithful as a source of religious insight.” Listening to the faithful is a process of communication and the means of communication are undergoing considerable transformation. This more dialogical form of communication has not been lost on the Church. Earlier this year, Archbishop Claudio Celli, the new president of the Pontifical Council of Social Communications, stated in a speech “the emergence of the Internet as an interactive medium, where users seek to engage as subjects and not just as consumers, invites us to develop more explicitly dialogical forms of teaching and presentation.” Archbishop Celli shows an awareness that the faithful can no longer be looked upon as submissive recipients of church teaching. With these new forms of communication in mind, Baggett’s book is poised to provide an introduction to the new world of making sense of the sense of the faithful.
Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith
Baggett uses the concept of negotiation to describe the process of resolving inherited faith traditions with the prevalent American culture. The process of negotiation occurs when American Catholics blend selective elements from American culture with those of the Catholic tradition. One of the key contributions of Baggett’s book is his claim that American Catholics do not make these choices lightly, despite what some may suggest.
So how does Baggett explore this process of negotiation? He adopts a “triangulation approach” by conversing with active Catholics in six parishes in the San Francisco Bay area.
Baggett connects the dots between diverse American Catholics by analyzing four American cultural attributes: the importance of self-awareness, the selective nature by which Americans build community, the ambivalent acceptance of the larger institution and the barriers which hinder civic involvement. A sampling of the first two will suffice for this review.
Baggett identifies a number of common phrases which reflect the pervasiveness of self-awareness among all American Catholics. Using the metaphor of an archeological dig, he labels these common phrases “conversational shards.” They are indicators of the negotiation taking place within the everyday lives of American Catholics. An example of a conversational shard is “for me,” which reflects how American Catholics lessen the sharp edges of some of the teachings of the Church. Baggett finds this shard even in the most conservative American Catholic when he presses them to elaborate on initial responses. This shard points to both an awareness of the inscrutability of God as well as an awareness of the common religious thrust of humankind.
Second, Baggett explores how American Catholics choose their faith communities. Gone are the days when American Catholics attended their local neighborhood parish. They are now members of “elective parochials,” meaning they choose parishes which best meet their individual needs. Baggett utilizes sociologist Kai Erikson’s understanding of communities in order to characterize today’s parishes as hometown parishes, multi-cultural parishes and oppositional parishes. What is of note in Baggett’s analysis is that American Catholics are driven more by American culture than Catholic tradition when choosing a parish. For example, in the United States there is a strong narrative of resistance which includes a distrust of government in particular and large institutions in general. In the area of religion, this translates into adopting a principled stance on religious grounds. This analysis allows Baggett to provide the surprising insight that parishes which serve a predominately gay Catholic population and those which serve the needs of Catholics desiring a return to the Latin Mass are both in the same camp. Ironically, these American Catholics have more in common than their supposed differences. Instead of choosing a parish based upon social compatibility or ethic compatibility these American Catholics choose a parish based upon ideological compatibility. The minority of American Catholics who desire the Latin Mass are suspicious of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the perceived loss of reverence in liturgical worship and the immorality in the modern world. Using similar logic, the minority of gay Catholics gather against a homophobic church in order to protect their sense of self worth or their perceived sense of the sacred dignity of the human person. Their parishes provide the social space for their members to question and resist certain elements of tradition.
A sign of a good book is how its insights provide a framework for dialog. Baggett references Alexis de Tocqueville to show how American Catholics have altered their allegiances. Tocqueville wrote “American Catholics are both the most obedient of the faithful and the most independent of citizens.” Today, Baggett claims, American Catholics are not as obedient to official church doctrine and they are very dependent on American culture. They are no longer American Catholics. They are Catholic Americans. This shift in perspective enables Catholic Americans of all stripes to come to an honest awareness of the impact of American culture, good and bad, and look upon this as common ground.
Baggett also wonders “whether or to what extent church leaders might seriously consider the sensibilities of the American faithful as a source of religious insight.” Listening to the faithful is a process of communication and the means of communication are undergoing considerable transformation. This more dialogical form of communication has not been lost on the Church. Earlier this year, Archbishop Claudio Celli, the new president of the Pontifical Council of Social Communications, stated in a speech “the emergence of the Internet as an interactive medium, where users seek to engage as subjects and not just as consumers, invites us to develop more explicitly dialogical forms of teaching and presentation.” Archbishop Celli shows an awareness that the faithful can no longer be looked upon as submissive recipients of church teaching. With these new forms of communication in mind, Baggett’s book is poised to provide an introduction to the new world of making sense of the sense of the faithful.
Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith
October 23, 2023
Baggett's presentation of religious sociology is what French Catholic tradition called "haute vulgarisation", the effective presentation of a difficult subject to a general audience. Baggett does it well. The back-and-forth between folksy storytelling and five syllable word sociology gets tedious sometimes, but overall, it is a good effort. In fact, Baggett's book would make a good introduction to what religious sociology is all about. Still worth reading, now that the collected data is a bit old (in my opinion, most pre-Covid data seems outdated now).
October 6, 2014
This is a serious piece of scholarly research. The book is based on surveys and interviews. At times I had trouble taking it all in. There are some great portions that could generate conversations. In my experience, Catholics don't talk much about why they are Catholic, how they practice, etc.
Appendices and extensive Notes follow the text. It was interesting to read about how other Catholics practice. I'll come back to this book again after it has some time to percolate in me.
Recommended.
Appendices and extensive Notes follow the text. It was interesting to read about how other Catholics practice. I'll come back to this book again after it has some time to percolate in me.
Recommended.
Read
November 17, 2010Things Baggett does well: considers a broad spectrum of parishes in the Oakland diocese, with a wide range of members in his demographic. He interviewed maybe a hundred and forty people about Catholocism. He's not trying to be objective here, either.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews