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Deconversion and Disaffiliation in Contemporary US Roman Catholicism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2014

J. Patrick Hornbeck II
J. Patrick Hornbeck II*
Affiliation:
Fordham University
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Abstract

Disaffiliation—when members of religious communities leave—has recently become a popular topic for theological and social scientific investigation. Today, fewer Roman Catholics than in recent memory describe themselves as strong members of their church. Many have left to seek other spiritual paths, and many of those who remain do not believe and practice as the Church teaches that they should. These essays propose that the theoretical framework of “deconversion” provides a broader and more effective way to understand forms of religious change that are occurring in contemporary America. In the classroom, teaching theology can take on a specific productive shape when the surrounding culture challenges theologians to take deconversion seriously as an element of, and larger context for, spiritual identity today. Theology remains vital when patient curiosity about the current adventure of religious identity is foregrounded pedagogically. Concluding thoughts sketch some important characteristics of an evangelical church, more concerned with its mission and witness in the world than with maintaining its internal life.

Keywords

deconversiondisaffiliationCatholic identityauthoritypracticesocial scienceNew Evangelization
Type
Theological Roundtable
Information
Horizons , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 262 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © College Theology Society 2013 

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References

14 The General Social Survey is carried out annually or biennially by researchers at the University of Chicago; see http://www3.norc.org/gss+website/.

15 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “‘Strong’ Catholic Identity at a Four-Decade Low in U.S.: Widening Gap with Protestants” (March 13, 2013), 1, http://www.pewforum.org/2013/03/13/strong-catholic-identity-at-a-four-decade-low-in-us/

16 Ibid., 2.

17 Ibid.

18 It should be noted that Americans, as a group, are not particularly hesitant to change congregations, denominations, or even religious traditions altogether. In their acclaimed study American Grace, Robert Putnam and David Campbell estimated that nearly half (47 percent) of Americans have changed places of workship at some point in their lives, often changing denominations or religious traditions at the same time. Separately, the 2007 survey under discussion here found that more than 28 percent of Americans “have changed their religious affiliation from that in which they were raised.” See Putnam, and Campbell, , American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010)Google Scholar, 168; Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Affiliation; Diverse and Dynamic (2008),” 5–6, http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf.

19 Pew Forum, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey,” 6.

20 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “Nones” on the Rise, 7, 10.

21 Steinfels, “Further Adrift.”

22 D'Antonio, William V., Davidson, James D., Hoge, Dean R., and Gautier, Mary L., American Catholics Today: New Realities of Their Faith and Their Church (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007)Google Scholar, 148.

23 “Minn. Archbishop: No ‘Lukewarm’ Catholics Welcome,” USA Today, October 19, 2010, http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-10-20-catholic19_ST_N.htm.

24 Robert Dixon, Sharon Bond, et al., Research Project on Catholics Who Have Stopped Attending Mass: Final Report (2007), http://www.pro.catholic.org.au/pdf/DCReport.pdf; Byron and Zech, “Why They Left.”

25 Hoge, Dean R., Converts, Dropouts, Returnees: A Study of Religious Change among Catholics (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981).Google Scholar

26 Among many other works, see Jamieson, Alan, A Churchless Faith: Faith Journeys beyond the Churches (London: SPCK, 2002)Google Scholar; Jamieson, , Church Leavers: Faith Journeys Five Years On (London: SPCK, 2006)Google Scholar; Richter, Philip and Francis, Leslie J., Gone but Not Forgotten: Church Leaving and Returning (London: Darton Longman Todd, 1998)Google Scholar; Ebaugh, Helen R. F., Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Barbour, John D., Versions of Deconversion: Autobiography and the Loss of Faith (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1994)Google Scholar; and Streib et al., Deconversion.

27 Portions of this section of the present article draw on Hornbeck, J. Patrick II, “Deconversion from Roman Catholicism: Mapping a Fertile Field,” American Catholic Studies 122, no. 2 (2011): 1–29.Google Scholar

28 L. Norman Skonovd, “Apostasy: The Process of Defection from Religious Totalism” (PhD diss., University of California, Davis, 1981).

29 Ibid., 182.

30 Many studies of the 1960s through the 1990s have used terms such as those listed here. See, among many others, Zelan, J., “Religious Apostasy, Higher Education, and Occupational Choice,” Sociology of Education 41 (1968): 370–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bromley, D. G., Falling from the Faith: Causes and Consequences of Religious Apostasy (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1988)Google Scholar; Bromley, , ed., The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1998)Google Scholar. On these epithets as a catalyst for disaffiliation, see Brinkerhoff, Merlin B. and Burke, Kathryn L., “Disaffiliation: Some Notes on ‘Falling from the Faith,’” Sociological Analysis 41 (1980): 41–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 See, for instance, Zelan, “Religious Apostasy”; Caplovitz, David and Sherrow, Fred, The Religious Dropouts: Apostasy among College Graduates (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1977)Google Scholar; and Mueller, C. W. and Johnson, W. T., “Socioeconomic Status and Religious Participation,” American Sociological Review 40 (1975): 785–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 See Hoge. Converts, Dropouts, Returnees.

33 This notion of “detour” leans on that of Michael de Certeau, who took from the radical Situationist movement the concept of détournement, i.e., using established modes of discourse in ways that were not envisioned by the original speakers. See especially de Certeau, , The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Rendall, Steven F. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).Google Scholar

34 The “Varieties of Deconversion in Roman Catholicism” study was approved by Fordham University's Institutional Research Board on May 17, 2012; the study protocol was amended on October 19, 2012. See http://www.fordham.edu/academics/office_of_research/institutional_review/.

35 Between 1983 and 2009, there existed in canon law the possibility that an individual might make an actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia (a formal act of defection from the church). This possibility appears to have been eliminated by the motu proprio of Pope Benedict XVI Omnium in Mentem, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_letters/documents/hf_ben-xvi_apl_20091026_codex-iuris-canonici_lt.html. Further research remains to be done on this extraordinary canonical situation.

36 Code of Canon Law, cc. 204 §1–205.

37 On the actual record-keeping practices of a sample of dioceses and archdioceses, see Hornbeck, J. Patrick II, “Counting Catholics in the United States of America,” American Catholic Studies 123, no. 4 (2012): 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 In his 1979 study of Catholic “dropouts,” Hoge attempted to overcome one of these challenges by proposing a formal definition of an inactive Catholic: “a person who has not attended Mass at least twice in the past year, apart from weddings, funerals, Christmas, and Easter. Elderly persons physically unable to get to Mass technically fit the category but are not included in our study. A person who has switched to a non-Catholic church and attends its services (but not Catholic Mass) is considered inactive” (Converts, Dropouts, Returnees, 5).

39 On this point, see especially Massingale, Bryan N., Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010)Google Scholar, as well as Nilson, Jon, Hearing Past the Pain: Why White Catholic Theologians Need Black Theology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2007)Google Scholar, and Cassidy, Laurie and Mikulich, Alexander, eds., Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007).Google Scholar

40 See further Hornbeck, “Counting Catholics.”

41 “Varieties of Deconversion in Roman Catholicism,” Deconvert Interview 8.

42 Ibid., Deconvert Interview 10.

43 Ibid., Deconvert Interview 13.

44 Ibid., Deconvert Interview 3.

45 See http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20110202_lineamenta-xiii-assembly_en.html.

46 “Varieties of Deconversion in Roman Catholicism,” Deconvert Interview 9.