Abstract

A range of studies have pointed toward an overall decline in a series of measures of religious affiliation amongst a variety of groups. The most imperilled group, perhaps, are those younger people who display strong religious salience. Religious salience is understood here as the formative and ongoing influence of religion on beliefs, attitudes and behaviours of adherents. Strong religious salience is associated with high levels of commitment and self-identification and association with a religious community. An important study that distils much of the recent work on religion and younger Catholics was conducted by Christian Smith and his colleagues.4 While noting that minimal expressions of religious affiliation remain more stable amongst Catholics, what are imperilled, in particular, are expressions of strong salience.5 In their study Smith and his colleagues gave the example of a fictional character, Marinella, who encapsulates the type of younger Catholic who does express high salience but is increasingly difficult to find. Marinella practises her faith consistently; for example, she attends Mass regularly and is able to articulate church doctrine and differentiate Catholicism from other religions. She believes most of what the church teaches and is involved in some form of church ministry. After gathering data from a survey of a representative sample of younger Catholics, Smith and others sought to strengthen their analysis by interviewing randomly selected participants from the wider group. In the interviews Smith and his colleagues were unable to identify any participant who approximated the Marinella typology.