Catholics inhabit the highest reaches of federal government in the United States: the presidency, congressional speakerships, and Supreme Court seats. This talk turns our attention to Catholic officials in local levels of government. I show how Catholic officials, who comprise nearly 30% of all locally elected officials, translate their faith in ways not driven by party affiliation. Further, by examining controversies around public holiday displays and prayers, I show how Catholic officials seek neither a separation between religion and state nor religious favoritism by the state. Instead, they are local protectors of religious pluralism.
Gary J. Adler Jr.
Gary Adler (Ph.D. University of Arizona; M.A. Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley) examines culture at the intersection of religion and politics. He co-directs the American Local Leaders Study about ways that local government officials engage with religion and navigate religion-state law on the ground. He is the author of Empathy Beyond U.S. Borders (Cambridge), American Parishes: Remaking Local Catholicism (Fordham), and Secularism, Catholicism, and the Future of Public Life (Oxford). His scholarship has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Fellowship Program, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and the American Sociological Association.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Societal Futures and the Centre for Public Ethics at Martin Luther University College.
