Happy to share two recent reviews of Crossroads with you all. Both mentioned their appreciation of the interviews for the first time in this series; I’m happy to say we are planning to continue to include these! The first review comes from Review of Religious Research and is written by Dr. Patrick Gilger, SJ, at Loyola University Chicago.

A highlight for Gilger was our use of the commitment index, showing that highly committed Catholics are far less politically polarized than Catholics of low or moderate commitment. In discussing the chapter on citizenship, he writes:

Day and her coauthors demonstrate that highly committed Catholics in each party ‘‘experience a ‘centering’ effect from their religion’’ on such divisive issues as the death penalty and abortion (p. 155). While only 20 percent of Catholics fall into the high commitment category, these findings show that commitment (rather than identification) is a critical factor in considering the ability of religions to create ‘‘areas of consensus’’ in a time of heightened political polarization (p. 163).

Springfield College’s Dr. Katherine Dugan brings us the second review in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Her review also discusses the political nuance Crossroads suggests, offers takeaways from the various chapters and highlights that this is a book written for scholars as well as Catholics in leadership positions:

On the one hand, this is a scholarly longitudinal study of American Catholic life. But on the other, this is also a book written with an eye toward application—what do these data mean for Catholics in the US? Their second audience therefore is the practitioner: Catholic leaders or ordinary Catholics in the pew who sense their religious community to be at a crossroads.

Thanks to both Gilger and Dugan for their thoughtful assessments and getting this book into the hands of a variety of readers!