The declining dissent among Catholic clergy since the 1970s has consistently been attributed to cohort replacement, indicated by age differences, as a result of changes in Catholic religious culture, despite a recognition in recent sociology of religion of the importance of institutional agency. I test (1) whether changes in priest’s beliefs and values are due to cultural trends (indicated by b...

According to cohen venavi, a classic Hebrew essay by Ekhad Ha-Am, there are two ways of serving God: Priest and Prophet. The priest is a very skilled technician who knows by heart the 613 mitzvahs, and who can slaughter a lamb with due regard to the many rigorous and subtle laws. On the other hand, a prophet is often very clumsy in the day-to-day ritual, and is unable to sacrifice an animal pro...

Based on the idea that believers' perceived relationships with God develop from their attachment-related experiences with primary caregivers, the authors explored the quality of such experiences and their representations among individuals who differed in likelihood of experiencing a principal attachment to God. Using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), they compared attachment-related experie...

In Timor-Leste, high fertility, high maternal mortality and low levels of contraceptive prevalence demonstrate the importance of exploring perceptions, policies and practices around reproductive health and rights. This paper explores the influence of the Catholic Church on reproductive decision-making at different levels of policy and practice. Utilising a feminist qualitative research methodol...