Conscience First, Tradition Second

"McNamara is on the cutting edge of a growing concern in the study of religion—future directions in the Catholic Church. His study is one of the few to use hard data to address the attitudes and practices of Catholic youth in the post-Vatican II church. Other analysts will refer to this study for a long time to come." — James D. Davidson, Purdue University"I like this book a great deal, in part because of the careful work McNamara has put into it and in part because so few studies in the sociology of religion follow successive cohorts. This is truly innovative and it deals with an important topic. Finally, I like the rich testimony reported in Chapter 5 from the graduates of a decade ago." — Phillip E. Hammond, The University of California at Santa Barbara

• List of Figures List of Tables Foreword by Joseph H. Fichter, S.J. Preface Introduction Part I 1. From Ghetto to Suburbs: The Decline of Devotional Catholicism 2. "According to My Conscience": Young Catholics and the Rise of Selective Catholicism Part II 3. Social Class and Social Viewpoints: The St. Martin's Senior Survey 4. "Selling More than Telling": Portraits of Seniors and Their Teachers 5. "People Nowadays Put Religion on the Back Burner": St. Martin's Graduates in Their Late Twenties Conclusion Appendix 1. Variables, Coding, and Frequencies Appendix 2. Independent Variable Impact on Two Social Sensitivity Measures by Two Time Periods Appendix 3. Crosstabulation Tables for Bivariate Analysis Notes Bibliography Indexes