The current issue of Commonweal has a conversation between editors past and present. In an initial discussion of how the magazine could attract more young Catholics, Peter Steinfels offered a typology of U.S. Catholics today:

I think there are basically four categories of Catholics middle-aged and younger. One consists of fundamentalist Catholics who want something, whether its the pope or particular texts or certain forms of ritual, that can be relied upon to provide their identity. For them, these things are not to be challenged; theyre to be taken literally. It may not be Scripture; it may be papal documents or other things. Then there is a neoconservative group that is much more questioning and intellectually adventurous, but whose identity is very much defined over against the secular liberal culture. And then there is a very large liberal group that has a Christian and Catholic commitment, but they are not willing to isolate themselves. They think that the secular liberal world-partly because of its Christian roots-has got a lot of good things in it. They want to be engaged with the culture and in conversation with it, not just in battle with it. They are not going to form their Catholic identity over against the secular culture. The fourth group is a more radical and political group that forms an identity largely around very personal, radical social-justice commitments.I think that the third group is probably the Commonweal group of the future, merging into the fourth group.

I am grateful that there are four groups within Peters typology, and not the two who commonly appear, even in the work of sociologists (you know, us vs. them, good guys vs. bad guys, Cowboys vs. Indians). What do you think of Peters analysis? I was struck that the only designation of numerical strength was in his description of the third cohort as "very large". I wonder how large it actually is and whether it is larger than the second group. Are there any natural affinities among the groups: e.g., between the first and the fourth in terms of fundamental religious commitment? between the second and the third in terms of intellectual adventurousness?Ive long wondered what the demographics of Commonweal subscribers is? For that matter, what the demographics of regular contributors to this blog is?