Original scientific paper
Ivan Cifrić
; Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This paper presents the resuIts of the empiric research (2004) on the representative sample of the inhabitants of the Republic of Croatia (N = 2,220) on some actual issues: the appropriateness
of some worldly activities of the priests, wedding of the priests, a
possibility of women becoming priestesses, the introduction of the
church tax and the relationship of religious communities. The statistical analysis was performed by including the techniques of
the univariant and bivariant statistics. Calculation of percentages
was used in order to get the distribution of the frequencies, whereas
for determining statistically significant differences of the characteristics, the chi-square test was used. In terms of theory, the
starting point were transitional conditions as challenges that in society open many questions as regards to the Church's life. The basic presumption is that the transition is a new context within which
emerge more liberal views of believers (citizens) on the mundane
(public) role of the priest and women as priestesses. On the other
hand, such changes are not visible within the Church. As far as the
new possible challenging worldly role of the priest (the minister in
the government, active in a political party, the head of the university, the president of the Croatian Olympic Committee, the
member of a supervisory board of a public enterprise, bishops
at political meetings) is concerned, the majority of the respondents
deems it inappropriate. Wedding of the priests is deemed more appropriate (48,7%) than inappropriate (27,5%), and the idea of
woman as a priestess equally appropriate as inappropriate (37%).
The biggest percentage of the respondents think that religious communities should be financed out of their own income earnings
(48,5%) or from the government budget (33,5%) while only 16,2%
of the respondents deems the church tax should be introduced. The
percentage of the respondents who are ready to pay the church tax
amounts 46,2%, what means that about one half of the believers is
not willing to do this. The same amount of the respondents (42,3%)
thinks that religious communities should not pay income and property taxes. The respondents consider that there is a dialogue
and cooperation among religious communities (39,8%), mutual
segregation (20,6%), and even intolerance (11,0%). The resuIts are interpreted in the context of Croatian society that is stratified in terms of values. It has kept many elements of pre-modernity as an
identity feature and along with them also the traditional standpoints
on the relationship towards the Church that affect the perception of
the respondents who are mostly believers.
Keywords
celibacy; church tax; public role of the priest; religious community; woman as priestess; financing of religious communities
Hrčak ID:
33125
URI
Publication date:
9.3.2009.
Visits: 2.747 *