| Abstract
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Roman Catholic Studies has had little interest in or sources on Catholics marginalized by region or age or both. Challenging this assumed wisdom calls for a new orientation to the study of Catholicism, an orientation found in Anthropology. In this paper, I question why scholars have failed to ask questions about how age—different stations in life and varying generational contexts, across space, time and within one historical moment—shapes Roman Catholic practice on the individual as well as communal level? To attempt to answer this question, I use examples from my work; two ethnographic studies with Southern Catholics of all ages to explore how an interdisciplinary, anthropological approach provides scholars with a new set of questions, draws their attention to new arenas of religious action, and broadens the cast of characters who play key roles in religious communities. Roman Catholic Studies has had little interest in or sources on Catholics marginalized by region or age or both. Challenging this assumed wisdom calls for a new orientation to the study of Catholicism, an orientation found in Anthropology. In this paper, I question why scholars have failed to ask questions about how age—different stations in life and varying generational contexts, across space, time and within one historical moment—shapes Roman Catholic practice on the individual as well as communal level? To attempt to answer this question, I use examples from my work; two ethnographic studies with Southern Catholics of all ages to explore how an interdisciplinary, anthropological approach provides scholars with a new set of questions, draws their attention to new arenas of religious action, and broadens the cast of characters who play key roles in religious communities.
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