Paul M. Perl

Offers a big picture analysis of American Catholicism The Catholic Church is at a crossroads. In the United States alone there are many challenges facing the church that are both internal and external to the institution. With the rise of the growing Gen Z population and the diminishing of the pre-Vatican II generation, gone are the days of a patriarchal, "father knows best" religious obedience. Indeed, as issues of gender, race, reproductive rights, and non-nuclear families have risen in prominence, the Catholic Church has had to adapt to keep pace with the times. The latest in a series of important sociological overviews drawing on nation-wide surveys administered every six years, Catholicism at a Crossroads charts this new era of Catholic worship, belonging, and identity in America today. Augmenting the survey data for the first time with over fifty interviews with lay and ordained US Catholic leaders, the book illustrates how the church has adapted to Pope Francis's modern papacy, the rise of religious non-affiliation, and various demographic changes including an increasing Hispanic population. Addressing how the church is responding to recent cultural challenges presented by political polarization, racial unrest, and threats to democracy, Catholicism at a Crossroads offers an up-to-date, nuanced, and definitive portrait of American Catholicism in the twenty-first century while also providing discussions of how the findings may be relevant for the study of American religion more broadly.

Offers a big picture analysis of American Catholicism The Catholic Church is at a crossroads. In the United States alone there are many challenges facing the church that are both internal and external to the institution. With the rise of the growing Gen Z population and the diminishing of the pre-Vatican II generation, gone are the days of a patriarchal, "father knows best" religious obedience. Indeed, as issues of gender, race, reproductive rights, and non-nuclear families have risen in prominence, the Catholic Church has had to adapt to keep pace with the times. The latest in a series of important sociological overviews drawing on nation-wide surveys administered every six years, Catholicism at a Crossroads charts this new era of Catholic worship, belonging, and identity in America today. Augmenting the survey data for the first time with over fifty interviews with lay and ordained US Catholic leaders, the book illustrates how the church has adapted to Pope Francis's modern papacy, the rise of religious non-affiliation, and various demographic changes including an increasing Hispanic population. Addressing how the church is responding to recent cultural challenges presented by political polarization, racial unrest, and threats to democracy, Catholicism at a Crossroads offers an up-to-date, nuanced, and definitive portrait of American Catholicism in the twenty-first century while also providing discussions of how the findings may be relevant for the study of American religion more broadly.

In the past thirty years, the Catholic bishops of the United States have made headlines with their statements on nuclear disarmament and economic justice, their struggles to address sexual abuse by clergy, and their defense of refugees and immigrants. Despite many similarities, the nearly two hundred U. S. bishops are a diverse mix of varying backgrounds and opinions. The last research-based book to study the bishops of the United States came out in 1989, since which time the Church has gone from Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI to Pope Francis and undergone dramatic shifts. Catholic Bishops in the United States: Church Leadership in the Third Millennium presents the results of a 2016 survey conducted by the Center of Applied Research for the Apostolate. It reveals the U. S. bishops' individual experiences, their day-to-day activities, their challenges and satisfactions as Church leaders, and their strategies for managing their dioceses and speaking out on public issues. The bishops' leadership has been tested by changes including the movement of Catholics from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West, the arrival of huge numbers of Catholic immigrants, and the ongoing decline in the number of priests and sisters serving the Catholic community. This book provides a much-needed up-to-date and comprehensive view of who the U. S. bishops of today are, where they are from, and how they are leading the Church in the United States in the era of Pope Francis.