Firmness and Accommodation: Impression Management in Institutional Roman Catholicism

This article examines institutional Roman Catholicism, particularly in the United States, as a complex organization seeking to maintain survival and relevance among constituents while preserving hierarchical power and traditional teachings. The limited change and accommodation to the modern world initiated at Vatican 11, yet curtailed in recent years, serves to inoculate the organization from further and more drastic changes in Church structure and teaching. The Church's response to issues of sexual morality on the official and local pastoral levels provides an example in which the organization attempts to manage impressions among the faithful and to forestall further institutional accomodations to internal and external social forces.