| Abstract: | This essay reviews the background of the relatively recent phenomenon of black Catholicism in America and the empirical studies which have explored possible connections between Catholic affiliation among blacks and their changing patterns of secular status. The problem addressed is whether the tendency for Catholicism to be associated with high socioeconomic status among black Americans can be interpreted as the operation of a religious factor in a classic Weberian sense. By comparing black Catholicism to the historical case of Protestantism, it is shown that Catholicism may well have some implications for character structure, social disengagement, and mobility which warrant its designation as a religious factor in the black American experience. |
