Religion and the Sociology of Culture: Exploring the Organizational Cultures of Two Midwestern Roman Catholic Dioceses

We examine different religious organizational cultures that exist subinstitutionally in two geographically contiguous Roman Catholic dioceses. They result in a very different cultural ethos, sense of religiosity, and sociocultural dynamics in the two diocese. Using survey data, interviews, public and diocesan statistics, and historical demography, we document such differences at three levels: episcopal leadership styles, clergy roles and problems, and laity religious orientations. To summarize such differences we construct ideal types, speculate about causal order in the emergence of religious organizational cultures, and suggest several issues for policy and future research.