JUST THE FACTS, MAN
Greeley, Andrew M.
which the religion in which the spouse was raised and age I realize that I am virtually the only one in the public are taken into account, the correlation between year of birth arena of the church...
...To choose a Catholic spouse protects and reinforces one's Catholic identity...
...More- over, despite all the social, economic, demographic, L~l~ral, and religious changes in this century, the "pure" endogamy rate has not changed significantly since the 1910-19 cohort...
...Priests seem to exult when they tell me that the latest "Oc- tober count" (bad data drive out good data, just as bad money drives out good money) shows a decline in church at- tendance...
...Bad data tend to drive out good data, especially when it is relatively easy to ask a question about the subject in a survey...
...Young people are still strongly attached to Catholicism, if in their own way...
...on the contrary, it is good to have a spouse who shares them...
...I doubt that Davidson or anyone else would want to go back to those pressures, even if it were possi- ble-which it certainly is not...
...Not one has ever wondered what he might have done to cause the problem...
...commonwealmagazine.org Commonweal | 5 December 17, 1999...
...Nonetheless, two-thirds of those Catholics who were raised Catholic and were born since 1940 (and, for the most part, came of marriage age after the Second Vatican Council) have cho- sen marriage partners who were also raised Catholic...
...Granted, the young are Catholic on their own terms now...
...Most Catholic/ Catholic marriages will occur in the Catholic church, despite what bitter taste in their mouths the bride and the groom might have after encountering parish staff...
...Similarly, the European bishops assem- bled in synod in Rome this fall were busy blaming everyone and everything in sight (especially vague cultural forces) for the "crisis" in the European church without asking what mistakes they might have made...
...See how bad the laity are, they seem to be say- ing...
...It is folly to try to make ecclesiastical policy without asking and at- tempting to answer these questions...
...I can only respond, with respect, that they should col- lect their own national sample data to prove that their experiences are typical and that our data are flawed...
...Despite all that we (pope, bishops, priests, lay staff, lay intellectuals) have done to them, we have not been able to drive them away from Catholicism...
...Many young couples report that rectories these days greet them with hostility instead of enthusiasm when they come to apply for marriage, that registration in the parish has re- placed baptism as a criterion of a right to the sacrament, that preparation for marriage has become an obstacle course in- stead of a celebration, and that priests or parish staffs fre- quently simply deny them the sacraments (for example, if they are living together), usually in direct violation of canon law...
...I agree with Davidson that more attention should be paid to young adults by the church (many parishes have no programs at all for them...
...9 Religion in our society is still an important element in a person's social identity (even though the media and the academy often try to pretend that it is not or perhaps should not be...
...The Reverend Andrew M. Greeley teaches sociology at the Uni-versity of Chicago and the University of Arizona...
...I would suggest that these data lend support for a conclusion opposite from that of Davidson...
...The Catholic stories which reflect the sacramentality and the community and are the core of the Catholic heritage are too good to give up...
...I know of some couples who simply go down the street to the local Lutheran church to contract marriage and then continue to attend Mass and receive Communion in the Catholic church...
...No one seems interested in the enormous residual power which might be latent in the Catholic heritage, much less in the solid empirical evidence that this power is still strong, perhaps even indestructible...
...Moreover, I am skeptical about trying to manipulate The Of- ficial Catholic Directory data to answer this question...
...9 Religious affiliation is a form of what George Stigler and Gary Becker have called consumption capital: a collection of habits, customs, attitudes, and behaviors in which one has invested considerable time and energy and hence a cap- ital that one is loath to lose or to compromise in an exoga- mous marriage...
...leave but why they stay, not why they marry those who were not raised Catholic, but why most of them marry those who, like themselves, were also raised Catholic...
...There are several rea- sons which we might consider...
...Nonetheless, and endogamy is reduced to statistical insignificance...
...However, in the absence of data, I doubt that this strategy has become common...
...I also believe that parishes should emphasize cele- bratory instead of rule-dominated preparation for marriage (many of which rules violate canon law...
...To those who think these explanations are absurd, I can only say, again with infinite respect, derive your own ex- planations for the consistency of the "pure" exogamy rate...
...9 Catholics like being Catholic...
...I am prepared for priests to argue that the data do not apply to the situation in their parishes, or for laity to argue that there have been far more mixed marriages in their fam- ilies...
...In conclusion, I have always been astonished at the propensity of the clergy (from the pope on down) and the se- rious thinkers in Catholicism to believe the worst about the Catholic young people and indeed about all the Catholic laity...
...which the religion in which the spouse was raised and age I realize that I am virtually the only one in the public are taken into account, the correlation between year of birth arena of the church who holds this position...
...WWW...
...We cannot tell from the data how many of these Catholic/ Catholic marriages were contracted in the presence of a priest...
...the phenomenon which must be explained is not why they B t would appear, therefore, that the increase in what the older monsignori used to call "those // damn mixed marriages" is almost entirely the result of the relaxing of pressures for marital conversions...
...So, for weal or woe, is everyone else...
...9 Faith--which may well subsume the first three reasons...
Vol. 126 • December 1999 • No. 22
