Abstract
This study is a sociological account of the relative failure of a Roman Catholic parish in the North Midlands to implement the changes in parish life implied by the documents of The Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1965). Initial observation suggested resistance to liturgical, pastoral and ministerial changes On the basis of a critical sociology developed along the lines of a Giddensian critique of both structuralism and phenomenology the following elements were identified by the processes of enumerative and analytic induction: 1) resistance both ideational and practical on the part of the majority of nuclear parishioners of (St Margaret's, Acton), to the process of sacral transformation evident elsewhere, whereby objects formerly hierophanized are desacralised in favour of newly sacralised phenomena; 2) the knowledgeability of social actors as they draw on the rules and resources of the Church and society in the context of the unintended outcomes of their predecessors' actions; 3) the ideological distortions in communication between priest and people; 4) the processes whereby the rules and resources referred to in (2) above are drawn on asymmetrically by hegemonic groups in ways which create forms of exploitative domination in the parish; 5) the historical structuring of religious praxis, specifically the influence of the nineteenth century Catholic revival in (Saxonshire); 6) the relative geographical and social immobility of the Catholic population in (Acton) and the fairly restricted religious socialization of active parishioners. Note: Pseudonyms have been used in this study. On this page and in Chapter 3 brackets have been used to indicate this. The practice is intended to protect the interests of the subjects of the research.