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To be a Sociologist and a Catholic: A Reflection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Kieran Flanagan
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The total number of Catholic sociologists in Great Britain could fit comfortably at the back of the Clapham omnibus. Among the many exotic ideological species of sociologists, the feminists, the cat fanciers, and the vegetarians, it is reasonable to assume a believing Catholic could be found somewhere. Those found seem to occupy a peculiar ideological limbo, their religious and sociological gaze doomed to be misunderstood by Church and discipline alike. This tiny band of sociological hopers forms a dispersed breed, invisible in their own Church, and for some, best kept so; within their discipline, they seem as a holy huddle on a tiny rock discernable in a sea of analytical uncertainty, odd, but interesting. Doubtless every occupation carries a burden, a witness to a calling out of improbable circumstances.

Although some sociologists wear their ideological beliefs heavily in public, most carry their burdens privately. Few biographies of sociologists have been written, and even fewer about those who are also Catholic. Sociologists are a reticent breed, and theologically they are unlikely to be able to say much about why they believe in Catholicism. Doubtless coming back to Catholicism was a surprise for some: maybe reading Althusser by candlelight, or an account of the ceremonies of the Dinka in bed, or spotting the moral similarities between the plight of Goffman’s actor and Job in a pub, drove some unsteadily further along the road to Damascus. To be a Catholic and a sociologist is to occupy a place not necessarily of one’s own choosing.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 67 , Issue 792 , June 1986 , pp. 256 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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