The Influence of Institutional Salience on Political Attitudes and Activism among Catholic Priests in the United States

Abstract

What motivates clergy political attitudes and behavior? We investigate this using a questions‐as‐treatment randomized experiment focusing on Roman Catholic priests in the United States. Our results suggest substantial utility in using a question frame referencing the distinct institutional expectations that clergy regularly confront. Specifically, when randomly primed to consider the expectations of institutional reference groups, clergy exhibit significantly higher levels of conservatism and report higher levels of political engagement, which is in line with their church's institutional preferences more generally. Our findings underscore the need for experimental methodology to make increased inroads into understanding political outcomes in religious contexts.

Political Speech in Religious Sermons

“…We are not confident that we understand what might prompt a pastor to post anything on SermonCentral or not, or to post a specific sermon on the website, just as we do not know fully what causes individuals to post political information on social networking websites (Barberá and Rivero 2015). Future research might combine our large- n data with surveys of pastors (Calfano and Oldmixon 2018) to understand how they see their congregation's politics or to gather additional observational data on the parishioners themselves.…”

“…Next, we build on extant literature (Djupe and Neiheisel 2008;Deckman, Crawford, and Olson 2008;Calfano and Oldmixon 2018) to examine which pastor, church, and location factors are associated with higher levels of political discussions generally and across specific political topics. We apply a novel approach to identify the community where our pastors preach by locating churches geographically and linking our sermons to census block and electoral precinctlevel information.…”

Imam Dan Larangan Berpolitik Praktis: Menimbang Relevansi Penegasan Magisterium Gereja Di Tengah Gemuruh Politik Menjelang Pemilu 2024

“…Dengan kata lain, mereka harus tampil dengan gaya profetis yang menggambarkan ketegasan sikap seperti para nabi yang dengan tegas berani membongkar selubung ketidakadilan dan menjadi 'mikrofon (Rikardus Moses Jehaut & Benediktus Denar) Allah' dalam mewartakan kebenaran tanpa takut dengan risiko yang bakal diterima sebagai konsekuensi dari pewartaannya tersebut. Dalam hubungan dengan keterlibatan politik, mereka harus mampu mengambil keputusan yang tepat dengan mempertimbangkan segala konsekuensi dari tindakannya (Calfano, et. al., 2017) serta mengambil serius larangan yang ditegaskan oleh magisterium Gereja.…”

Political responsiveness and centralized religious leaders: lessons from the Catholic Church

“…For instance, clergy across Christian denominations in the United States talk about the issues that are important to them and the central organization, but then talk about the issue in ways that cater to their congregation (Boussalis et al, 2021). Clergy may take on delegate roles and act against their preferences (Calfano, 2009), but generally, clergy express preferences close to the central institution (Calfano and Oldmixon, 2018).…”