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Catholics in Contemporary Britain showcases findings from a wide-ranging, empirical study of Catholics living in Britain, placing the contemporary Catholic community in the wider contexts of their society and the global faith of which they are a part and presenting a rich and fascinating demographic, religious, and attitudinal profile.

Statistics documenting the manpower shrinkage of the Amer Catholic Church in the past decade are cited. Seminarians of religious orders have decreased by 35% since 1965. The main losses are in the specialized ministries which used to draw the best-educated. The effects of this manpower shrinkage on the operation of the Catholic church in the US are examined. There is a trend toward greater involvement of the laity in the operation of the parish & a wide exp'tion with parish councils. The central concept of collegiality, which concerns the general relationship between authority & obedience in the church, is shifting. In pol'al terms, it implies a shift in the power centers, from the Vatican Curia to the Episcopal Synod, from the diocesan chancery to the clergy senate. It does not mean popular democracy but it does tend to move the Catholic church from a strongly authoritarian structure to a semblance of representative or participatory democracy. The practice of collegiality has proceeded further in the religious orders than elsewhere in the church. A profound change in the life-style of the church professional is implied, toward acceptance of a sense of personal responsibility & self-direction. This change lifts instit'ized restrictions that had long been felt to be a barrier to initiative, maturity, & creativity. There is also a switch of emphasis from the diocese to the primary group or small task force which carries overtones of an anti-instit'al bias. The instit represents both bigness & repression. The need for self-confidence & self-fulfillment is emphasized & the younger clergy & religious are often very critical of church leadership. The increasing openness of the church is reflected in the seminaries & training places of church personnel, who are now receiving a much broader & diversified professional preparation. The youthful & decimated generation of trainees will unquestionably add a new dimension to the whole ecclesiastical profession of the future. They appear to be adaptive to sudden change & willing to accept the challenge of a more professional approach to the work of the new church. Modified HA.

Like the church they serve, the full-time Roman Catholic professionals, including religious Sisters and Brothers as well as priests, are experiencing a period of crisis. Fewer people are entering this career, and many are leaving it. The main losses are in the specialized ministries in which the best- educated have been engaged. Meanwhile the traditional struc tures are being revised and replaced with experimental forms. The authoritarian system is giving way to collegiality at all levels, from relations with the laity to those with the hierarchy. A new focus on task-orientation has emphasized professionali zation which, in turn, has promoted self-fulfillment and relative autonomy. Seven out of ten of the church professionals in America are religious Sisters who are reorganizing their com munities around smaller task forces with much greater local self-direction than ever before. The traditional assumption that a celibate clergy is much more effective professionally than a married clergy is now being widely questioned. The religious orders, while maintaining celibacy, are re-evaluating the prac tical aspects of the vows of poverty and obedience. The in creasing "openness" of the church is reflected in the seminaries and training places of church personnel, who are now receiving a much broader and diversified professional preparation.

The Catholicism is not shrinking, but rather, its demographic center of gravity is shifting. What was once a largely homogenous religion concentrated in Europe and North America, is now a truly universal faith. In 1900, just 25 percent of Catholics lived in the developing world; today that figure is 66 percent and climbing. In a few decades, the new centers of theological thought will no longer be Paris and Milan, but Nairobi and Manila. In this article, it briefly discusses the following topic about Catholic Church: Catholicism is right wing, the church is filthy rich, the church never changes, the Vatican is cloaked in secrecy, Catholicism is obsessed with sex, and the church is ultra hierarchical. Adapted from the source document.

The Church and State in Poland are now passing through a period of relaxation. There are innumerable small changes that testify to this, but the most important are these:1. Declarations by representatives of the Party and the Government have stressed equalirv of opportunity for each citizen regardless of his religion. The ultimate criteria in the evaluation of a worker are to be his work outlay, his capabilitv and his knowledge, and not his relationship to the Church.2. The properties of the Catholic Church in the western territories were nationalized in 1961, and since then the Church has been in the position of tenant in that area. Now these properties have been returned. Elsewhere in Poland the Church remains the private owner of sacred objects and of small agricultural plots.3. Talks between the episcopate and the Government, long suspended, have been resumed.4. There has been some liberalization in the policy of taxation of the Church.5. The policy of granting passports has been liberalized, and a greater number of permits are now being given to priests for trips to non-Communist countries either for scholarly purposes or in connection with agencies administered bv them.

"To which are added, by way of Appendix, the queries submitted to, and the answers received from, the faculties of divinity in the Catholic Universities of Paris, Douay, Louvain, Alcala, Valladolid, and Salamanca, in 1789, touching the doctrines imputed to Catholics ."--T.p. ; Mode of access: Internet.

A study of the anti-Catholic movement in 19th-century Britain. Catholic emancipation in 1829 was followed by a Protestant backlash, stimulated by the growth of the evangelical movement and of Catholicism, and the political endeavours of Irish and British Tories