2006-09-25 00:59:19 · 3 answers · asked by pretty_hotbabe2004 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I don't think any Catholic is going to be able to figure out what you are talking about. As an academic, my guess is that this is homework because it sounds awefully close to an anthropology question.
The problem with the question is that there are over 1 billion Catholics. Folk Catholicism is probably meant as Catholicism as it is seen through the lens of ordinary people throughout the world.
However, the Catholic Church is the most diverse religious organization on Earth. All aspects of Protestantism find an analog in the Catholic Church. Even though a Baptist and a Lutheran have almost nothing in common, in fact Lutherans burned 20,000 Baptists at the stake during the Reformation at Luther's orders, both share different elements of Catholicism. Further the Catholic Church has elements of first century Christianity that are absent in Protestant Churches.
I will provide an example. The Thomas Christians of India are those Christians whose Churches were founded by the Apostle Thomas. They were out of touch with the rest of Christianity for over 1000 years. When the Portuguese arrived in the sixteenth century to Christianize India, they found the Mass being sung as Thomas had left it. Catholics of Malabar and Catholics of New York City and Catholics in Antioch do not remotely look alike except that they all accept the same core teachings and embrace one another in love in communion.
So folk Catholicism is all that stuff which is not held in common but is rather a local expression of belief. An example might be the Rosary. The Rosary is not an element of official Catholic teaching. It does not have a fixed form, it is not used in all parts of the Catholic Church, it varies across time. It looked very different in the year 200 than the forms it appears in today.
So at least two characteristics is that it is a local expression and temporally conditioned.
2006-09-25 01:37:42 · answer #1 · answered by OPM 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm catholic, but I never heard of folk catholicism.
2006-09-25 08:06:45 · answer #2 · answered by stargazer 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I am a devote orthodox Catholic. I have no idea what you are asking for?
2006-09-25 08:09:17 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋