I don't read as much Church sociology as I would like ... and I would only like Greeley or ... Davidson.

Fr. Komonchak thinks Davidson is oversimplifying his research.

Some of the comments are interesting, in a sociological way ... and ultimately very positive, encouraging, hopeful ...

the results of surveys ... show a clear trend, amplified in each succeeding generation, away from what Catholic writer Eugene Kennedy calls “Culture One Catholicism,” with a high emphasis on religious practice, clerical authority and doctrinal conformity, towards “Culture Two Catholicism,” emphasizing lay autonomy and the individual conscience.

the idea that some younger Catholics–including theologians–are “Culture One” Catholics just doesn’t work for me. They couldn’t be even if they tried. The “Culture One” culture that Davidson is referring to isn’t just a belief system. It’s a whole set of unconscious assumptions that people picked up from living in a certain time and place and it is gone, dead and buried. “Liberal” and “Conservative” Catholics in the post-conciliar era are liberals and conservatives in decidedly “Culture Two” ways. The Catholic blogosphere–where hotshot young laity regularly take the p–s out of bishops they don’t like–is very much a Culture Two phenomenon. [J. Peter Nixon]

The difference (and peril) for what I’ll call Neo Culture One types (just because putting “neo” in front of anything makes it so trendy) is that, as Peter said, they are not generationally Culture One. They are more like restorationists, but trying to restore something they don’t know. And that, as Peter Berger points out, becomes fundamentalism–the effort to recreate a past that never existed. That makes fundamentalists as modern as anyone. And just as Peter noted, the purportedly ultramontane “conservatives” are in fact among the toughest critics of the church, top to bottom. Or what they might call “dissenters.” Culture is hard to create; it’s even harder to re-create. PS: I converted at the Vatican in 1989 at the age of 30. What the hell does that make me? [David Gibson]

While I agree that Culture 1 is a thing of the past, I also believe that a modicum of sacramental discipline on the part of the faithful would be salutary. That’s a Culture One phenomenon that’s well worth trying to transform into something vibrant today. [Jim Pauwels]

My intent was to suggest that a certain type of Catholic -culture-, quite apart from the individuals who were once formed by it, no longer exists. We may rejoice in its passing or we may regret it. But it seems indisputable to me that it has passed. My own feelings are mixed. There are times when I think there is an “unbearable lightness” to contemporary Catholic culture and applaud efforts to recover a “thicker” set of Catholic practices. I think there are many of my generation who are not necessarily “fundamentalists” who feel this way. But any new Catholic culture that might come into being through small acts of resourcement will certainly not be a return to the recent past. It will be something new, something that is hopefully a form of Christian witness that can speak to the unique needs of our age. [J. Peter Nixon]

Amen.