The Social Character of the Roman Catholic Mass

Brian Cody

Date of Award

2006

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Rosel, Natalie

Keywords

Catholicism, Catholic, Mass, Sociology of Religion, Rituals, Social Construction

Area of Concentration

Sociology

Abstract

Catholicism is the largest single denomination in the world. Aside from any shared religious experience, there is also a shared social experience among Catholics, that of attendance and participation in the Mass. Vatican II specifically and consciously changed the Mass to encourage more participation from the attendees, and this Mass structure is fairly continuous the world over. What, then, is the structure of the Mass? What sort of behavior occurs during Mass? In what ways is this behavior normalized? The seemingly formal and highly �scripted� Mass services provide a venue for explicating the mechanics of the common assumption that religion is a social phenomena. At the base level, addressing social participation in this specific setting adds breadth to the entire field of sociological inquiry. More specifically, a whole body of work exists defining �the Catholic imagination� and the elements that contribute to a unified Catholic identity. The Mass is a large socializing factor that forms a strong basis for Catholics to be able to have identification as a group, yet little writing has delved into the social experience of this socializing force.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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