Dillon, M. 1996. “The Persistence of Religious Identity among College Catholics.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 35(2): 165-170.
Since Vatican II, more and more American Catholics have adopted a profile of “doctrinal selectivity,” rejecting aspects of the Church’s moral and socio-political teachings while embracing the Church’s sacramental and communal tradition. In this paper, Dillon explores whether the religious identities of Catholic students at an elite, non-denominational college reflect this larger pattern. The author bases her conclusions on results of a sample of 76 completed mail surveys. She finds that frequency of church attendance was a strong predictor of the respondents’ views on abortion, pre-marital sex, and institutionalized religion, with the “less frequent attenders” being more tolerant of pro-choice, sex before marriage, and a more expansive definition of spirituality that is not necessarily tied to religious organization. Further, “women respondents did not show a different orientation on values… than their male counterparts.”
