Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T13:27:37.920Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contexts of Trends in the Catholic Church's Male Workforce: Chile, Ireland, and Poland Compared

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2016

Brian Conway
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Using case pattern analysis, this study examines Catholic male workforce trends in the majority Catholic countries of Chile, Ireland, and Poland. Employing denominational data for three categories of church male professionals in the 1950–2010 time period, I document four important trends. First, ordinations to the diocesan priesthood in Ireland went into decline especially after Vatican II, have been relatively stable in Chile with only a moderate increase in the 1990s, and spiked in Poland in the 1980s, 20 years after Vatican II. Second, in all three countries the average defection rate among diocesan seminarians increased in the 2000s compared with the earlier two decades. Third, the religious priest workforce has declined in Chile, has been relatively stable in Ireland until the 2000s, and is growing in Poland. Fourth, from the late 1960s there has been a decline in the workforce of religious brothers in each country, especially in Ireland. The theoretical contribution to the Catholic workforce literature is discussed in terms of a critical events argument emphasizing the impact of Vatican II, prophetic stances, sexual scandals, and papal visits on labor market trends. I conclude with implications for the study of religion and society in general.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , Fall 2016 , pp. 405 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Annuario Pontificio (1952–70) Vatican City: Vatican Publishing Library.Google Scholar
Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae (1969–2010) Vatican City: Vatican Publishing Library.Google Scholar
Bendyna, Mary E., ed. (2006) Emerging Communities of Consecrated Life in the United States. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Berry, Jason (2000) Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Bezjak, Sonja (2012) “Catholic women religious vocations in the twentieth century: The Slovenian case.” Review of Religious Research 54 (2): 157–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruneau, Thomas C. (1982) The Church in Brazil: The Politics of Religion. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Chaves, Mark (1991) “Segmentation in a religious labor market.” Sociological Analysis 52 (2): 143–58.Google Scholar
Conway, Brian (2014) “Religious institutions and sexual scandals: A comparative study of Catholicism in Ireland, South Africa, and the United States.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 55 (4): 318–41.Google Scholar
Dillon, Michele (1996) “Cultural differences in the abortion discourse of the Catholic Church: Evidence from four countries.” Sociology of Religion 57 (1): 25–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dillon, Michele (2007) “Decline and continuity: Catholicism since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec,” in Tentler, Leslie Woodcock (ed.) The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press: 239–67.Google Scholar
Ebaugh, Helen Rose, Lorence, Jon, and Chafetz, Janet Saltzman (1996) “The growth and decline of the population of Catholic nuns cross-nationally, 1960–1990: A case of secularization as social structural change.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 35 (2): 171–83.Google Scholar
Finke, Roger (1997) “An orderly return to tradition: Explaining the recruitment of members into Catholic religious orders.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 36 (2): 218–30.Google Scholar
Fishman, Robert M., and Jones, Keely (2007) “Civic engagement and church policy in the making of religious vocations: Cross-national variation in the evolution of priestly vocations,” in Giordan, Giuseppe (ed.) Vocation and Social Context. Leiden: Brill: 127–51.Google Scholar
Fleet, Michael, and Smith, Brian H. (1997) The Catholic Church and Democracy in Chile and Peru. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Giulia Agostini, Maria (2012) “New testimony surfaces in sexual abuse case of Chilean priest.” The Santiago Times, July 18. santiagotimes.cl/new-testimony-surfaces-in-sexual-abuse-case-of-chilean-priest/.Google Scholar
González, Gustavo (2002) “RIGHTS-CHILE: Bishop suspected of sex abuse retires to monastery.” Inter Press Service News Agency, November 1. www.ipsnews.net/2002/11/rights-chile-bishop-suspected-of-sex-abuse-retires-to-monastery/.Google Scholar
Hirschle, Jochen (2010) “From religious to consumption-related routine activities? Analyzing Ireland's economic boom and the decline in church attendance.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49 (4): 673–87.Google Scholar
Hoge, Dean R. (2011) “The sociology of the clergy,” in Clarke, Peter B. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 581–96.Google Scholar
Htun, Mala (2003) Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce, and the Family under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Iannaccone, Laurence R. (2003) “Looking backward: A cross-national study of religious trends.” www.chapman.edu/research-and-institutions/economic-science-institute/_files/ifree-papers-and-photos/Iannaccone%20-%20Looking%20Backward%20-%202008.pdf (accessed March 22, 2014).Google Scholar
Irish Bishops’ Conference (1979) Justice, Love and Peace. Dublin: Veritas Publications.Google Scholar
Keogh, Dermot (2007) “The Catholic Church in Ireland since the 1950s,” in Tentler, Leslie Woodcock (ed.) The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press: 93–149.Google Scholar
Lies, William, and Malone, Mary Fran T. (2006) “The Chilean church: Declining hegemony?,” in Manuel, Paul Christopher, Reardon, Lawrence C., and Wilcox, Clyde (eds.) The Catholic Church and the Nation-State: Comparative Perspectives. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press: 89–100.Google Scholar
Linden, Ian (2009) Global Catholicism: Diversity and Change since Vatican II. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Luxmoore, Jonathan (2012) “Polish church faces demands to confront sex abuse.” National Catholic Reporter, January 13. ncronline.org/news/accountability/polish-church-faces-demands-confront-sex-abuse.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James (2000) “Strategies of causal inference in small-N analysis.” Sociological Methods and Research 28 (4): 387–424.Google Scholar
Peillon, Michel (1982) Contemporary Irish Society: An Introduction. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.Google Scholar
Porter-Szűcs, Brian (2011) Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schoenherr, Richard A. (2002) Goodbye Father: The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schoenherr, Richard A., and Young, Laurence. A. (1991) “Full pews and empty altars: Demographics of U.S. diocesan priests, 1966–2005,” in Ebaugh, Helen Rose (ed.) Vatican II and U.S. Catholicism. London: JAI Press, Inc.: 85–104.Google Scholar
Seidler, John, and Meyer, Katherine (1989) Conflict and Change in the Catholic Church. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Shupe, Anson, ed. (1998) Wolves within the Fold: Religious Leadership and Abuses of Power. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Brian H. (1982) The Church and Politics in Chile: Challenges to Modern Catholicism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stan, Lavinia, and Turcescu, Lucian (2011) Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stark, Rodney, and Finke, Roger (2000) “Catholic religious vocations: Decline and revival.” Review of Religious Research 42 (2): 125–45.Google Scholar
Stevens-Arroyo, Antonio M., ed. (2002) Papal Overtures in a Cuban Key: The Pope's Visit and Civic Space for Cuban Religion. Scranton: University of Scranton Press.Google Scholar
Strassberg, Barbara (1988) “Polish Catholicism in transition,” in Gannon, Thomas M. (ed.) World Catholicism in Transition. New York: Macmillan: 184–202.Google Scholar
Streeck, Wolfgang (2005) “The sociology of labor markets and trade unions,” in Smelser, Neil J. and Swedberg, Richard (eds.) The Handbook of Economic Sociology. Princeton: Princeton University Press: 254–83.Google Scholar
Streib, Gordon F. (1973) “Attitudes of the Irish toward changes in the Catholic Church.” Social Compass 20 (1): 49–68.Google Scholar
Sullins, D. Paul (2013) “Institutional selection for conformity: The case of U.S. Catholic Priests.” Sociology of Religion 74 (1): 56–81.Google Scholar
Tanner, Marcus (2003) Ireland's Holy Wars: The Struggle for a Nation's Soul 1500–2000. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
The Maddison-Project (2013) http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/maddison-project/home.htm (accessed March 24, 2014).Google Scholar
Wilde, Melissa J. (2007) Vatican II: A Sociological Analysis of Religious Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Philip J. (1989) The Catholic Church and Politics in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Wittberg, Patricia (1994) The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective. Albany: The State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Woodcock Tentler, Leslie, ed. (2007) The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism since 1950 in the United States, Ireland and Quebec. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
World Economics (2016) Maddison Historical GDP Data, http://www.worldeconomics.com/Data/MadisonHistoricalGDP/Madison%20Historical%20GDP%20Data.efp (accessed March 22, 2014).Google Scholar
Young, Laurence A., and Schoenherr, Richard A. (1990) “Contradiction and change in organized religion: Roman Catholicism in the United States and Spain,” in Hallinan, Maureen T., Klein, David M., and Glass, Jennifer (eds.) Change in Societal Institutions. New York and London: Plenum Press: 143–68.Google Scholar
Zubrzycki, Geneviève (2006) The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar