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This paper reflects on the vocation or 'calling' of the researcher in the sociology of religion in the light of his experiences of researching transformations in English Catholicism in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It takes as its starting point Weber's two essays. A consideration of religious perspectives on the lay vocation leads to an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of insider research. The paper reflects on research mistakes, threats and attempts to co-opt the researcher, unexpected surprises and serendipity, and the need for the social scientist to retain control of his/her research. It concludes with inspiration from Havel that the calling of the sociological researcher is socially important and urges renewed commitment to seeking with integrity the extension of certified knowledge and the demystification of powerful institutional structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we will report some of the findings of a study of the rise and fall of the Young Christian Worker movement in England and Wales. From its origins in the industrial north in the 1930s, the movement reached its peak in the early 1950s. Since then it has declined and yet many of the current generation of Catholic activists were strongly influenced by its ideology, ecclesiology, and inductive approach to finding Christian responses to social issues. We explore from a social movement perspective what social factors contributed to its early growth. The context for its decline in recent decades are the major post-war social and post-Vatican religious changes which have transformed English Catholicism. We argue that the two stages of the decline correspond closely to the passage through adolescence and the young adult years of two successive generations in the post-war years, the 'baby boomers' and the 'baby busters'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the marginalization of British Catholics active both in the Church and in the Labour movement. On the one hand such Catholics often have to face the traditional clerical suspicion of socialism with its imputed associations with militant atheism and Marxist materialism. On the other hand, within the Labour movement there have been suspicions of the resistance of Catholics to radical social change and their alleged reactionary positions in the matter of women's rights. Two Catholic Members of the Parliament have complained that though they received some support for their political involvement from individuals, in the main they did not feel they received support in the vocation from the institutional Church. Both testified to the political difficulties which they had and the pressures to which they had been subjected in attempts to amend abortion legislation. Such findings lend credence to the hypothesis that Catholics active both in the Church and in politics experience a sense of marginality in both institutional spheres. As such, Catholics grapple with the sometimes conflicting demands of the social worlds of the Catholic Church and the Labour movement and they experience psychological uncertainty.