Wow, what a fun time I had with hosts James Floyd and Melissa Miller on their fascinating podcast, Star Warsologies. Their show invites an expert on some non-Star Wars topic to explore what the film (and other spin-off tales) has to say on that matter… from music to psychology to zoology, just to name a few. I had a great time re-watching the nine episodes in preparation to talk about empathy and compassion as these occur in the movies. You can hear all about this in their 49th episode, “Empathy and Compassion in Star Wars.” Melissa and James, you were fun and gracious hosts and I thank you immensely for your hospitality and good spirits!

Even the fun of the specific lens we took aside, it was a delight to take something from popular culture and think about it from a particular perspective and consider the lessons–be they good, bad, oversimplified, or something else–it offers. A good practice, especially for us in academic-land!

Some of my research on Catholics and political commitment was featured in the Winter 2023 issue of The CARA Report. “Nuances in Support of Catholic Causes” highlights that the polarization gap closes–and for some issues, disappears altogether–as commitment to Catholicism increases.

I broke our sample of 1500 Catholics into those who identified as Democrat or Republican, and then also broke those folks down by whether they were high commitment, medium commitment or low commitment Catholics (“commitment” is a composite variable based on Mass attendance, likelihood of leaving the Catholic Church and how personally important the Catholic Church is to them). I found that, when asked about government funded health insurance, supporting migrating families, and opposing the death penalty–all “Democrat-friendly” issues–both Democrats and Republicans became increasingly supportive of the Catholic position as their Catholic commitment increases (this is less noticeable for Democrats on the health insurance and migration issues, where we’re approaching saturation with the support). On the death penalty issue, the high commitment Catholic support among Republicans was so strong that they actually surpassed the low commitment Democrats! At least more than half of high commitment Catholic Republicans defected from their party and selected the Catholic position for these three issues.

These data show that while the majority of Catholics tend to vote through the thinking of their party, the high commitment Catholics will also consider their faith, so much so that they will break with the party lines. The polarization narrative is not as cut and dry as we often make it out to be (thank goodness!).

All this and more will be featured in a book that Jim Cavendish, Paul Perl and Michele Dillon and I are writing up right now, so stay tuned. Thank you, CARA, for helping our research find its way into the hands of ministers and Catholic leaders who will apply this to their ministries.

What a time! It was hope-filled, hard work, inspiring, exhausting, and so much more. I met so many great people and I think we all walked away seeing things differently than when we arrived. As Fr. Frank Cancro said in his homily, “The journey was part of the gift.” I’ll link to any pages that come up later that have resources (including my talk) from the gathering. But for now I’ll share the photo of my working group; Fr. Frank was also our facilitator and–because he is a minister for circuses–he gifted us with these noses. A good way to celebrate together to conclude our steadfast work. Don’t forget, the proceedings report is just below.

Molleen Dupree-Dominguez hosts a fabulous podcast, On a Mission. It was a pleasure to talk with her on her most recent episode about American Catholics and all the problems and possibilities that come with that! Listen to the episode here.

Many thanks to the researchers at Georgetown University’s CARA for covering my paper on Latinx Catholic parish stewardship in The CARA Report. Based on interviews with pastors and Hispanic Catholics, this study fills an important gap in the literature on Latinx Catholic giving: We have established that Hispanic Catholics give less than other ethnic and racial groups, but we don’t know why. And if we don’t know why, parishes and dioceses are unable to respond. This paper uncovers the why and concludes by suggesting better practices. The full paper was accepted by American Catholic Studies and I’ll be sure to post it here once it is published. Thanks to CARA’s coverage, a few dioceses and Catholic organizations have reached out to me for the paper and we’re working on getting that accessible soon!

Thank you, CARA, for helping sociologists of Catholicism get our work into the hands of those who can put it to good use! Also, thank you to Villanova University’s Center for Church Management for funding this project!

While we await the first copies of the campus ministry study to return from layout and design, the National Qualitative Study of Campus Ministry was covered by Heidi Schlumph of NCR today. Stay tuned for the full report (officially released today, on the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of educators).