North American vs European Trends in the Research of Religion

Silvano Burgalassi, an Italian sociologist of religion, conducted a very interesting study in twenty-seven different parishes in his country which included 2,160 different people. Through this study Burgalassi discovered five subcultures of Catholicism. The first is an atheist basis which shows a belief limited to human social values. The second category is of the religiously indifferent which includes those affiliated with Catholicism who are unwilling to break their ties with religion but are not very ongoing parishioners. The third set follows the official Catholic Church model. The fourth group is the magic sacred, a traditional family with a liking toward superstition. And finally, the fifth group is in a diffused state. They are characterized by an excessive opening of the future. The results of the study show that the indifferent subculture, group number two, accounted for 55 percent. The magic scared 20 percent, the official church model 15 percent and the atheism and diffused state 5 percent each (Cipriani 217-8).…