Spiritual Gatekeepers: Time and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults

Abstract

This article addresses the process of initiation into the Catholic Church by analyzing in‐depth interviews with parish‐based professional initiation coordinators. The formal title given to this process of initiation by the Church since Vatican II is the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). Since the RCIA's promulgation, the Church has hired a host of lay and religious professionals to coordinate its implementation at the parish level. Our analysis focuses on the temporal sequencing and the problem of duration of initiation. The data show that both city and suburban coordinators adapted the Church's mandated length of time for initiation in different ways as they negotiated covenantal and contractual social relations among RCIA participants.

Silent Disagreement: Microinteractional Solutions to Moral Dissent Among Catholic Converts

“…When initiates disagreed with Church teachings, they used the concept of top‐down Church hierarchy to defer control and resultant blame upward, away from the teachers and parish priest. This finding demonstrates how resolving dissent relies heavily on organizational context, building upon prior studies of RCIA, which have considered how parish characteristics matter in the implementation of initiation (McCallion and Maines ; Yamane , ).…”

“…St. Augustine's RCIA adhered to the academic calendar year, a common practice in student (Yamane ) and urban (McCallion and Maines ) parishes. The six‐month duration is typical for a subset of RCIA programs.…”

Divided and Drifting: Interactionism and the Neglect of Social Organizational Analyses in Organization Studies

“…While the issue is instructional on many levels, two particular items are very much related to the concerns of developing and extending the study of social organization. First, McCallion and Maines () offer insights in to the temporal ordering of ritual and rites—that is, in this case the practice of and practical accomplishment of becoming initiated into a Christian fellowship. Second, Flaherty () explores the agentic construction of temporality—the manner in which agents make time.…”

Talk, Research Technology, and the Achievement of Human Subject “Status Passage”

“…This designation has been overlooked in sociological studies of status movement and in recent social science writings on informed consent (e.g., Bosk 2002; Corrigan 2003; Edwards et al 1998; Kuczewski and Marshall 2002; Lidz and Appelbaum 2002). While much theory development on status passage stresses such properties as temporality (Kingston 2000; McCallion and Maines 2002), identity formation (Goffman 1961; Kingston 2000; Timmermans 1996), and situatedness (Timmermans 1996), a different tack is taken here. Glaser and Strauss's observation that status passages are socially accomplished provides the starting point for a consideration of two related foci.…”

“…First, this research attends to the part that interaction plays in status passage achievement. While the significance of interaction to status completion and cessation is stressed in much of the literature on the topic (see, e.g., De Vries 1981; Glaser and Strauss 1965, 1968, 1971; Hart 1976; Lewis 1999; McCallion and Maines 2002), the actual talk of passage participants is less prominently featured. This may be explained, in part, because interactionists are inclined to approach talk as a resource for explaining social process and not as an object for showcasing its function (Allen 2001).…”