Original scientific paper

Some Characteristics of the Position of Laymen in the Church

Gordan Črpić ; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Stjepan Kušar
Ivan Rimac ; Institute of Social Science «Ivo Pilar», Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

The authors were interested in the place and role of laymen in the Catholic Church. They measured the attitudes of Croatian citizens toward liturgy, hierarchy, presence of community in the Church and presence of a cultural identification in the existing Church religiosity. They found that there is a significant part of the population for which there exists a positive attitude toward liturgy, and to being together in Church. In relation to hierarchy, they found that most believers believe that they can be good catholics without listening to the Pope and bishops. And they found that part of the population finds only cultural and national identification in the existing church religiosity. With factor analysis, they extracted four factors on sixteen variables which show: unreligiosity, individual religiosity, nominal Christianity (religiosity), distant Christianity, and social role of the Church. The first factor is mostly asserted by people who are at a distance from the official Church religiosity, younger people with higher education, born in cities, more politically oriented to the left. The second factor is more acceptable to people who are also at a distance to Church religiosity, and by lower educated people, and more from Orthodox believers. Distance Christianity is also more strongly supported by people who are, of course, distant from Church religiosity. The social role of the Church is more stressed by older people who want to find some place for their social life than by younger people. This opinion is widely spread among the population. Almost 90% of the population believe that the Church should have a socially integrating role.
Generally, we found that younger people, with higher education, and urbanised people show a much more critical attitude toward Church religiosity, and they are much more open to searching for new religious experience and practice in the Church, and of course, out of it, in new religious movements.
The authors have recommended that the Church be made a place for dialogue and for new groups especially constituted by intellectuals, because so far they have been pretty much neglected. They can help the Church in the modern situation, especially here in Croatia after all the changes that have taken place in the last few years. To bring something like this about, a »climate« must be formed in the Church for accepting this project. Theologians have a great role to play in this task.

Keywords

Church; layman; clergy; distance; identification; communication

Hrčak ID:

31590

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/31590

Publication date:

27.4.1999.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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