Happy Feast of the Epiphany! There has been a lot of good news to announce lately and I’m afraid that I am two months late in letting you know that a book based on the first wave of the National Study of Catholic Priests housed at The Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America has been released!
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My thanks go out to Dr. Ben Clements of the University of Leicester in the UK for his positive review of Crossroads in the Journal of Contemporary Religion. His review elevated findings from each of the chapters and captured well the insights that the book offers not only to local parishes and dioceses, but also national and international implications. I also appreciated the ways he endorses the urgency and high-stakes nature that we as authors believe our findings point to. Our Church–from the local to the global–is truly at a crossroads. In concluding, Clements writes:
Overall, this is a rich and informative analysis of the sociological structures and wider situation of Catholics in American society, accessibly written and thoughtful in its consideration of the findings and their relevance for internal debates in the Catholic Church. Readers will find much to learn about change and continuity in Catholics’ religious belonging, behaviour, and believing and how these connect to issues of gender, sexuality and equality, and core political debates.
My co-authors and I hope you find this book equally valuable!
Dr. Carol Ann MacGregor of St. Jerome’s University has provided a positive review of Cultural Catholics in the latest issue of American Catholic Studies. In her review, MacGregor highlights some of the book’s key contributions and notes its usefulness for multiple audiences. To offer a pull quote:
“[T]his in depth treatment of cultural Catholics will be of interest to both scholars and those engaged with ministry and leadership of Catholic organizations…. Overall, this book does a compelling job of emphasizing the heterogeneity among American Catholics in ways that are both rigorous and accessible.”
Thank you, Carol Ann, for helping bring this book to interested readers!
So excited to announce that another great book is underway! My good friend and esteemed colleague, Dr. Tia N. Pratt (Villanova University), and I will be co-editing a collection that will explore Catholics’ experience of racism and what a Catholic response to this might entail. This is a much needed book as we think through how we might better equip parish, educational, and diocesan leaders to better plumb the tools of our faith as they bring the Good News of Christ to all. Thank you, Liturgical Press, for partnering with us in this!
A Catholic Witness Against Racism: Resources for Ministers and Educators will showcase chapters that help bring both robust scholarship and professional expertise to this pressing concern. In addition to chapters by Tia and I, our all-star list of contributors includes Alejandro Aguilera-Titus, Ansel Augustine, Kim Harris, Linh Hoang, Brett Hoover, Dan Horan, Efran Menny, Maureen O’Connell, Hosffman Ospino, and Bethany Welch. Each chapter will close with thoughtful discussion questions for readers to think through how they might apply the insights to their context. As always, as the project progresses, I will post updates on my Books page.
Excited to announce that the contract has been signed! I’ll be partnering with Dr. Richard Flory and his team at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture to bring scholars and practitioners a new book: How Congregations Thrive: Fostering Community, Identity, and Mission in Today’s Churches. It will be part of the Bloomsbury Studies in Religion and Civic Culture series, led by CRCC.
This book explores the Los Angeles subset of the Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations study, a national study housed at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research and led by Dr. Scott Thumma. It is a fascinating dataset that shows both the fragility and the resilience of today’s congregations in the midst of and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The book is taking shape as I dive more deeply into the data, especially the observations and interviews. One big observation that shapes the book is that congregational “thriving” is often not a binary (either you’re thriving or you’re not) and really there are typically areas that congregations are doing well in (e.g., outreach) and other areas in which they are struggling (e.g., connecting with teens and young adults). This framework helps scholars and clergy alike really understand and assess a “typical” congregation, rather than the handful of “exemplary” congregations that typically characterize books on congregational health. I’ll put updates on my “books” page throughout the process!
The Association of Catholic Publishers has just announced their winners and I’m thrilled to share that Cultural Catholics earned 2nd place in the “Resources for Ministry” category!
Also, my thanks to Noah Banasiewicz, S.J. of America magazine for his strong review of Cultural Catholics! He really touched on some of the key insights of the book in a way that can help potential readers imagine how they might use the findings to better connect with Catholics who attend Mass infrequently. I’ll offer the closing paragraph of the review here:
As a scholar who researches evangelization and seeks to identify how the church can better reach those beyond our pews, I struggle to find thinkers who propose pathways forward that are both practically sound and spiritually rich. Cultural Catholics embodies both of these needs and is a resource from which any diocese, campus ministry or scholar engaged in this work would benefit. Day is neither blindly optimistic nor despairing; rather, she charts a way ahead fitting for this Jubilee Year, undergirded by authentic, ambitious hope.
Finally, I had a delightful conversation with journalist Luka Tripalo of Glas Koncila, Croatia’s largest Catholic weekly. We discussed the book’s implications for Catholic life beyond the United States and also ventured into a few other areas of Church life; it was great to do some cross-cultural comparisons. Our conversation reveals that cultural Catholicism is definitely not just an “American thing,” and so the book offers some opportunities for other countries to think creatively about engaging these Catholics. Tripalo did a great job of distilling our 1+ hour conversation into a tidy, interview-style article. You can read the article, “U.S. Expert on Cultural Catholics Maureen K. Day: Parishes Can Bring Believers Back to Church — Christmas Liturgy Should Be Planned as Early as August,” in English or in Croatian. Tripalo sets the stage of our conversation with the following:
It is therefore refreshing when someone approaches this issue [infrequent Mass attendance] not only from the angle of pastoral activism, but also with academic rigor. Both perspectives—pastoral and scholarly—are united in the recently published book by American Catholic theologian and sociologist Dr. Maureen K. Day, titled Cultural Catholics: Who They Are, How to Respond, published by Liturgical Press. In our conversation with the award-winning author and researcher, we discussed not only the phenomenon of cultural Catholicism, but also the challenges of Catholic social engagement and the potential for reimagining the current model of parish pastoral care.
Catholicism at a Crossroads has been able to weigh in and respond to the conversations and questions so many are having with the unexpected passing of Pope Francis.
I had such a great conversation with Mary C. Curtis on her podcast, Equal Time. We discussed so much, from the global Church to experiences at the local parish. You can hear it all on “The Politics of the Catholic Church after Pope Francis.”
On the first day of the conclave, The Conversation published a piece I authored that explores the terrain of the US Church, with a nod to some of the global dimensions, as well.
Co-author Jim Cavendish also had a great conversation over similar themes on the news! You can watch it at “History of the Papacy,” an episode of Fox 13 Unscripted.
Holy Week greetings, everyone!
I’m thrilled to let you know that Cultural Catholics is a finalist in the Association of Catholic Publishers awards this year! It is appropriately in the “Resources for Ministry” category. Cultural Catholics is a great read for anyone trying to better accompany Catholics who are infrequent Mass attenders and should be the go-to book for those in Evangelization and Outreach offices or similar arenas. I’m happy to talk more to anyone wanting to use this book in their context!
Blessings on your Triduum!
This is a long overdue post (the book came out early February) but Catholicism at a Crossroads is now available for purchase! I am so excited to share the findings with scholars and Catholics broadly. Again, it looks at the way everyday Catholics and their leaders are engaging with experiences of parish life and perceptions of the institutional Church, moral authority, race and racism, civic and political attitudes and engagement, sexuality and family, and longitudinal trends (this is the most recent survey in a series that began in the 1980s). It is selling very well, averaging two print copies a day in the first nine weeks. I don’t know the number of e-copies, but it looks like the word is getting out!
My co-authors and I have been able to share some of the findings in a variety of media outlets. These include Paul Perl’s article, “Decades of surveys show American Catholics’ moral independence,” my own piece, “US Catholics’ political attitudes: It’s complicated (but hopeful),” and Jim Cavendish’s article, “US Catholic attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people changing dramatically, research shows” as a three-part series in the National Catholic Reporter.
We have also discussed some implications in additional sources. I have an article in America exploring how the Church should use research broadly entitled, “Data and discernment: How the church can make better use of empirical evidence.” Jim Cavendish also published an essay on the New Ways Ministry blog, “American Catholics’ Attitudes Toward LGBTQ+ People: New Research Findings.”
I promise you’ll find it filled with countless insights on American Catholic life. And, if you buy it from the NYU Press website, you can get 30% off if you use the discount code NYUAU30. Drop me a line and let me know what you think!
As some of you know, the global Synod on Synodality–a discussion of Catholic experience across the world and at every level of the Church–concluded in October 2024. But far from an ending, the Church envisioned this as a beginning. Now parishes, schools and other Catholic organizations are prayerfully discerning ways forward after all we have seen and heard.
One of the many questions that surfaced in this synod is how to expand and support women’s leadership in the Church. To this end, my bishop and synod delegate, Cardinal Robert McElroy, commissioned a Women’s Advisory Committee to better understand the experiences of women in contexts of Catholic leadership in the Diocese of San Diego. The co-chairs of this committee were Dr. Mary Lyons and Chancellor Marioly Galván and I served as the social researcher. After a diocesan-wide census, a pastor survey, a survey of female leaders with both closed- and open-ended questions, and a key Committee meeting reflecting on the barriers, opportunities for enhancement, and ideas for ways forward in female Church leadership, we are pleased–at long last–to share the final report: Catholic Women in Leadership Study: Final Report. We share this not only to improve women’s leadership within our diocese, but also with the hope that it helps other dioceses think through the ways they might respond to the renewal called for in the synod, whether that be in relation to women’s leadership or any other prompting of the Spirit. You can also read about it’s coverage in National Catholic Reporter and listen on The Francis Effect: Illegal Deportations, Survey of Women in Ministry, Meghan Clark Interview (survey begins 35:20).
May we all be animated by communion, participation and mission!
Maureen K. Day, Ph.D. 