Overview

Sacred Callings is an innovative sociological study of cross-national trends in the global Catholic priesthood. Based on a comparative-historical analysis of priesthood trends in Argentina, Malta, Nigeria, and the Philippines during 1950-2010, the monograph investigates how significant developments within the Catholic Church have shaped the evolution of vocations over time. The book introduces and tests a new critical events theory, proposing a four-part framework-ecumenical councils, prophetic stances, sexual scandals, and papal visits-to help explain variation in priesthood trends. It demonstrates how these events operate as cues for religious callings, as well as how they interact with another. Amid a global demographic shift in the Catholic priesthood -marked by declining vocations in Western regions and growing numbers in countries such as Nigeria-Sacred Callings provides a timely analysis of an important dynamic in the contemporary Church. In doing so, it offers fresh theoretical and empirical insights into the role of short-term events in shaping religious change in modern societies.

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9789523691278

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Assistant professor of sociology at Maynooth University / former editor of the Irish Journal of Sociology (2014-17) / co-editor of Religion, Law, and COVID-19 in Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Helsinki University Press, 2024), co-author of Sociology of Ireland (Gill & Macmillan 2012), author of Commemoration and Bloody Sunday: Pathways of Memory (Palgrave 2010). ORCID: https: //orcid.org/0000-0001-6821-7829

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