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Article: Assessing and updating the Schoenherr-Young projections of clergy decline in the United States Roman Catholic Church.(The Roman Catholic Priesthood)
- Article from:
- Sociology of Religion
- Article date:
- March 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Association for the Sociology of Religion. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Since 1988, Richard A. Schoenherr and I had published a series of journal articles, book chapters, and research reports which focus on applying the tools of social demography to the study of clergy decline in the United States Catholic Church. Our research program is best summarized in the book, Full pews and empty altars (Schoenherr and Young 1993a).
Our empirical focus was on the individual organization as a population of its professional members, in this case, Catholic priests. We collected data from church officials in a sample of 86 dioceses and constructed a 19-year census registry of the American clergy covering 1966 through 1984. In effect, we created a ...