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A Matter of Discretion
The Politics of Catholic Priests in the United States and Ireland
Authors:
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Publisher:
2017
Summary
Clergy are pillars of local religious communities, and Roman Catholic priests are perhaps the quintessential examples of pastors functioning as political elites. The political science literature demonstrates that priests (indeed, clergy more generally) are well-positioned to influence the faithful, even if this influence is somewhat inconsistent. At their core, priests are opinion leaders and representatives of their church to both the faithful and their local communities.
But exactly how Catholic priests determine the political acts and attitudes associated with their elite role remains a puzzle. We suggest it is the product of an interactive institutional, social, and psychological milieu, the complexity of which has not been fully assessed in the extant literature. Though some might prefer to think of priests as profiles in courage operating above the political fray, the institutional and personal realities of priest life often forces them to deal with the political realm. In doing so, priests are variably responsive to different principals, or reference groups, that represent specific dimensions of their professional context. Drawing on a series of randomized experiments on samples of Roman Catholic priests in the US and Ireland, we find that priests cognitively draw on varying professional and personal cues in responding to their employer’s institutional preferences. Furthermore, how priests represent their church's political preferences to parishioners appears to be a matter of individual-level discretion.
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Bibliographic data
Copyright year
2017
ISBN-Print
978-1-4422-3724-7
ISBN-Online
978-1-4422-3725-4
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
210
Product type
Book Titles
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Preface No access
Chapter 1. Catholicism and Politics No access Pages 1 - 22
Chapter 2. Priests as Political Entrepreneurs of Varying Desire No access Pages 23 - 46
Chapter 3. Reflecting on Ministry and Politics No access Pages 47 - 78
Chapter 4. The Dynamics of Priest Cue Reliance No access Pages 79 - 114
Chapter 5. Cognitive Frames, Group Cues, and Priest Political Responses No access Pages 115 - 154
Chapter 6. Priest Discretion in the Field No access Pages 155 - 184
