Catholicism Doesn't Always Mean What You Think It Means

Anthropologists of Catholicism should consider "floating" Catholicism as a signifier and resisting ingrained habits of essentializing and assuming its referent or content, exemplified by still-frequent quotations of sociologist Andrew Greeley's exceptionalist idea of the "sacrame...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Exchange
Main Author: Byrne, Julie 1968- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill [2019]
In: Exchange
IxTheo Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
KBQ North America
KDB Roman Catholic Church
NBE Anthropology
Further subjects:B independent Catholics
B Essentialism
B Empire
B micropolitics
B virtual assemblage
B lapsed Catholics
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Summary:Anthropologists of Catholicism should consider "floating" Catholicism as a signifier and resisting ingrained habits of essentializing and assuming its referent or content, exemplified by still-frequent quotations of sociologist Andrew Greeley's exceptionalist idea of the "sacramental imagination." I use examples from my work including everyday micropolitics, independent Catholics, and cultural Catholics, as well as the work of Maya Mayblin and Jon Bialecki, to suggest a catholic—in the small-c sense of all-encompassing—approach that has the potential to sustain the anthropology of Catholicism as a radical space for investigation and discovery. I revisit Greeley's "sacramental imagination" in the context of its quotation in a U.S. museum exhibit and connect its appeal to Roman Catholic empire-making.
ISSN:1572-543X
Contains:Enthalten in: Exchange
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/1572543X-12341526