As reported by John Allen, at the CTSA convention a day or two ago, sociologist James Davidson of Purdue University

"reviewed data from surveys of what he identified as four distinct generations of American Catholics, grouped with respect to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65): Pre-Vatican Catholics, meaning those born before 1941, representing 17 percent of American Catholics; Vatican II Catholics, born between 1941 and 1960, at 35 percent; Post-Vatican II Catholics, born between 1961 and 1982, at 40 percent; Millennial Catholics, born since 1983, at 8 percent...."Davidson argued that the results of surveys from 1987, 1993, 1999 and 2005 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."

I didnt attend the CTSA convention and so didnt hear Davidsons presentation, and perhaps should wait until I can read it as an essay; but I have to say that I am always deeply suspicious of bi-polar schematizations of complex social bodies, such as the Roman Catholic Church in the USA. Some years ago, a group of sociologists tried to divide us all up into either "European restorationists" or "American assimilationists," the former being the savage Indians and the latter the righteous Cowboys. The whole thing foundered for me on the facts that none of my rather large family, and none of my friends, fit neatly into either category and that the trio whom Italians called "the Star-Spangled Trinity" (Michael Novak, R. John Neuhaus, and George Weigel) couldnt be fit in either. So with regard to Davidsons schema: Does it really illumine anything? Dont we really need at least three groups? More?