Research on Canadian Congregations

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people sitting on church pew inside church

Along with parents and schools, congregations are part of a “religious transmission ecosystem” with children. Using case study data with a Catholic parish in Canada, this article explores how this parish defines and approaches various roles and initiatives across the religious transmission ecosystem, along with its perceived and experienced obstacles and responses related to religious transmission. I argue that while parents are seen as the central socialization influence, with parishes and Catholic schools playing supportive roles, a perceived problem is that many parents along with teachers in Catholic schools are cultural Catholics. As a result, this parish seeks to reassert itself as the dominant socialization influence in the religious transmission ecosystem toward (re)socializing children and their parents and teachers. Despite best efforts to help with religious transmission, this parish has resigned itself to a “planting seeds” approach, in hopes that something takes root and grows for parents and their children. The confluence of macro- and micro-level factors beyond parish control alongside cultural assumptions and behaviors within the parish together yield weak starting points to set children and their parents on a trajectory for higher rates of Catholic religious transmission.