The Shared Parish - by Brett C Hoover (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

As
faith communities in the United States grow increasingly more diverse, many
churches are turning to the shared parish, a single church facility
shared by distinct cultural groups who retain their own worship and ministries.
The fastest growing and most common of these are Catholic parishes shared by
Latinos and white Catholics. Shared parishes remain one of the few institutions
in American society that allows cultural groups to maintain their own language
and customs while still engaging in regular intercultural negotiations
over the shared
space.

This
book explores the shared parish through an in-depth ethnographic study of a
Roman Catholic parish in a small Midwestern city demographically transformed by
Mexican immigration in recent decades. Through its depiction of shared parish
life, the book argues for new ways of imagining the U.S. Catholic parish as an
organization. The parish, argues Brett C. Hoover, must be conceived as both
a congregation and part of a centralized system, and as one
piece in a complex social ecology. The Shared Parish also
posits that the search for identity and adequate intercultural practice in such
parishes might call for
new approaches to cultural diversity in U.S. society, beyond assimilation or
multiculturalism. We must imagine a religious organization that accommodates
both the need for safe space within distinct groups and for social networks
that connect these groups as they struggle to respectfully co-exist.

Review Quotes

"[]The Shared Parishis a book that creatively presents the cultural and religious transformation happening in Catholic places of worship and challenges scholars from the social sciences and theology to engage in further research on this growing phenomenon of shared parishes."-- "Review of Religious Research"

"At the heart of this book, Hoover provides a careful study of a Midwestern parish transformed by immigration and the movement of Latina/os beyond the Southwest. . . . [A] welcomed contribution to a multifaceted problem that deserves further action and research."-- "Choice"

"Offers a full, rich, and highly satisfying analysis of the challenge of diversity in the Roman Catholic church of America. Yes, we know that broad demographic shifts are affecting the the Catholic church, but this book finally gives an intimate, contextually rich, and theologically astute presentation of ground-level workings of cultural diversity among faithful Catholics who strive to achieve unity amidst their clashing cultural heritages."--Gerardo Marti, author of Worship across the Racial Divide

"Perhaps the greatest value of the bookis to be found in the chapter Hoover devotes to promoting a theory of the shared parish. He explores how this parish can function administratively as one church while maintaining & two distinct cultural communities operating in parallelEnglish and Spanish, Euro-American and Latino, each with its own masses in ministries."-- "Sociology of Religion"

"The book is a welcome addition to the contemporary discussion about parish life in the United States."-- "Sociology of Religion"

"The Shared Parish: Lations, Anglos, and the Future of U.S. Catholicism, [is] an intriguing and much-needed addition to the growing body of literature on a theology of parish, is both ambitious and prophetic."-- "Horizons"

"Trained in theology and social science, adept in Catholic culture and in Spanish, Brett Hoover brilliantly captures the distinctly Catholic phenomenon of the shared parish. He writes with insight and compassion about the alternately tense and calm encounters that take place when two different groups find themselves living religiously together."--R. Stephen Warner, University of Illinois at Chicago

About the Author

Brett C. Hoover is Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. His previous books include Comfort: An Atlas for the Body and Soul.