Context, congregation and community: The influence of social context on creating a sense of community in Catholic parishes

Abstract

There are over 19,000 Catholic parishes in the United States (CARA 2010) and they vary in a lot of different ways. The current study sought to understand the variations in sense of community (SOC) in Catholic parishes. In addition to developing a picture of SOC in Catholic parishes, the current study also looks in the various institutional and contextual factors that have an effect on SOC. Through the theoretical frameworks of Open-Systems, Resource Dependence and Human Resources hypotheses relating to contextual factors were posited predicting that parishes located in counties that are more homogenous will score higher in SOC and parishes located in counties that are more stable will score higher in SOC. Hypotheses relating to institutional factors predict that smaller parishes and parishes with an ethnic identity will have score higher in SOC. Lastly, the hypothesis regarding the human resources dimension predicts that parishes with strong leadership will score higher in SOC. Data from the 2006 Catholic Parish Life Survey, along with data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census and data from the Glenmary Research Center in 1990 and 2000 were used to test the hypotheses. Bivariate correlations, contingency table analysis and multivariate regression were used. The results of the statistical analysis were surprising and so interactions between the various independent variables are also investigated. Only one hypothesis was supported by the data, parishes with a strong leader score higher in SOC than those without a strong leader. This finding held true even when interaction effects between the context and leadership were taken into account