ROMAN CATHOLICISM [FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS] A significant theme recurs in Roman Catholic studies at the turn of the twenty-first century: before nominally indicating a church or adjectivally describing a belief, Roman Catholicism denotes action. It is what people do with spiritual sensibilities redolent of the Christian God and tutored in traditions of Roman Catholic memory. Terrence Tilley's 2000 study of Roman Catholicism as a religious tradition is representative, illustrating Roman Catholicism as the act of handing something on (traditio) as much as the things (tradita) passed down.

This focus on human action belies the oversimplified image of Roman Catholicism as a hierarchical, authoritarian church of immutable beliefs and acquiescent believers. It reveals a much more complex phenomenon: a church hierarchical in form, yet materially diverse in its religious actions and insights. Roman Catholics variably control and contest the practice of their religious sensibilities; practices...