NDA@SZTAKI

WHAT IS VERNACULAR CATHOLICISM? THE „DIGNITY” EXAMPLE

Primiano, Leonard Norman

Akadémiai Kiadó

2001

GT Manners and customs / néprajz, szokások, hagyományok

The fact of Christianity’s negative attitude toward homosexual relations has not
stopped a large number of gay and lesbian Christian believers from continuing to think of themselves
as members of their respective denominations. In many American metropolitan settings,
groups of homosexual Roman Catholics have formed a religious organisation named ‘Dignity’ to
fulfill a need for worship and socializing.
Focusing on the Philadelphia branch of Dignity, this paper examines the reasons for the continued
involvement by homosexual American Catholics in religion in general and in such an antagonistic
religious institution in particular. The study of the sexual politics of this Dignity congregation
has generated a new perspective which underscores the insufficiency of the conventional
terminology of “sectarian,” “popular,” or even “official,” religion for describing the vitality of lived
religion. In response, I offer the term “vernacular religion” which will be explained and assessed as a
new approach in the search for understanding of any given community of believers and their various
categories of religious belief. The relation of the study of vernacular religion to the Philadelphia
Dignity community will be discussed through an examination of its history and developments; of the
negotiated beliefs of its members; and its reactions to the institutional church, and to the AIDS crisis.

magyar

Article

PeerReviewed

info:eu-repo/semantics/article

text

http://real.mtak.hu/56802/1/aethn.46.2001.1-2.6.pdf

Primiano, Leonard Norman (2001) WHAT IS VERNACULAR CATHOLICISM? THE „DIGNITY” EXAMPLE. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 46 (1-2). pp. 51-58. ISSN 1216-9803

http://real.mtak.hu/56802/

https://doi.org/10.1556/AEthn.46.2001.1-2.6