Catholicism at a Crossroads

Offers a big picture analysis of American Catholicism

The Catholic Church is at a crossroads. In the United States alone there are many challenges facing the church that are both internal and external to the institution. With the rise of the growing Gen Z population and the diminishing of the pre-Vatican II generation, gone are the days of a patriarchal, “father knows best” religious obedience. Indeed, as issues of gender, race, reproductive rights, and non-nuclear families have risen in prominence, the Catholic Church has had to adapt to keep pace with the times.

The latest in a series of important sociological overviews drawing on nation-wide surveys administered every six years, Catholicism at a Crossroads charts this new era of Catholic worship, belonging, and identity in America today. Augmenting the survey data for the first time with over fifty interviews with lay and ordained US Catholic leaders, the book illustrates how the church has adapted to Pope Francis’s modern papacy, the rise of religious non-affiliation, and various demographic changes including an increasing Hispanic population. Addressing how the church is responding to recent cultural challenges presented by political polarization, racial unrest, and threats to democracy, Catholicism at a Crossroads offers an up-to-date, nuanced, and definitive portrait of American Catholicism in the twenty-first century while also providing discussions of how the findings may be relevant for the study of American religion more broadly.