NCCL’s Parents and Families at the Center of Faith Formation Project is focused on exploring how to strengthen family religious and spiritual transmission in the first two decades of life, and create parish communities that intentionally accompany and support parents and the whole family.
NCCL’s Parents and Families at the Center of Faith Formation Project will establish a solid foundation of knowledge about how religious and spiritual transmission takes place within families in the first two decades of life. Using this knowledge the Project will work with parish leaders and families in creating new approaches and strategies that are reflective of the research and current thinking on religious and spiritual transmission. The Project seeks to build on how Catholic families are already transmitting faith and values so that new approaches and strategies support parents. The new approaches and strategies will be developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive, personalized to diverse parental religiosities, and responsive to diverse family structures.
RESEARCH REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS
Content presented to attendees of the 2024 Catholic Family Summit in Chicago.
UPCOMING WEBINAR :: ENCORE OF REPORT / SESSION 1
Transmission of Catholic Faith:
A National Survey of Catholic Parents
Dr. Mark Gray & Dr. Jonathan Wiggins (CARA)
Presented by John Roberto (NCCL)
REPORT / SESSION 2
Intergenerational Transmission of Faith:
Parents’ Power, Polarization, Plans, Processes, and Pitfalls to Ponder
Dr. Annette Mahoney (Bowling Green University)
Dr. Annette Mahoney
...is a Distinguished Research Professor at Bowling Green State University where she has taught in the Ph.D. clinical psychology program since 1994. She specializes in theory and empirical research on relational spirituality, i.e., ways that religious/spiritual cognitions and behaviors about close relationships can help or harm psychological well-being and relationships. She has published 80 peer-reviewed articles and 28 book chapters. This includes integrative reviews on religiousness/spirituality and coupling, uncoupling, and parenting across diverse families. She created the Relational Spirituality Framework to organize and synthesize such studies. She also wrote The Science of Children’s Spiritual and Religious Development (2021), and co-edited the APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality, Vol 2 (2013). Her empirical studies have addressed roles that religious/spiritual processes play for dating, marriage, the transition to parenthood, parenting, couples' sexuality, romantic break-ups, divorce, sexual abuse, and interpersonal violence. Her latest research interests focus on the roles that religious/spiritual factors play for sexual and gender minorities, religious exiting, non-theistic parenting, coping with relationship dissolutions, and singlehood. In a 2022 Stanford University report, she was ranked among the top 2% of scientists worldwide.
REPORT / SESSION 3
Family and Parental Factors in Faith Formation:
Findings from the American Families of Faith Project
Dr. David Dollahite (Brigham Young University)
Dr. David C. Dollahite
...is Professor of Family Life at Brigham Young University. He received a doctorate in Family Social Science from the University of Minnesota (1988) and a masters in Marriage and Family Therapy from Brigham Young University (1985) and is a family life coach. He is Co-Director of the American Families of Faith project with Loren D. Marks. Dave has more than 200 publications for scholarly and public audiences. He has written or edited nine books on family life and religion and including: Psychology of Religion and Families (2025, Routledge), Home-Centered Gospel Learning and Living (2022, BYU RSC & Deseret Book), Strengths in Diverse Families of Faith (2020, Routledge), Religion and Families (2017, Routledge), Successful Marriages and Families (BYU Studies, 2012), Helping and Healing Our Families (Deseret Book, 2005), Strengthening Our Families (Bookcraft, 2000), Generative Fathering (1997, Sage), and Turning Hearts: Short Stories on Family Life (1994, Bookcraft). He and his wife, Mary, have been married more than 40 years, have seven children, and four grandchildren.
REPORT / SESSION 4
Religious Transmission
from Parents to Children
Dr. Amy Adamczyk (City University of NY, CUNY)
Dr. Amy Adamczyk
...is Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Programs of Doctoral Study in Sociology and Criminal Justice at The Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). In 2005 she received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Pennsylvania State University. She holds MA degrees from the University of Chicago and the Graduate Center/Queens College, and she completed her BA degree at Hunter College. Her coauthored book, Handing Down the Faith, was a finalist for Christianity Today’s 2022 Book of the Year Award, Marriage & Family Category. She is also the recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Book Award from the International Section of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. With her colleague she received the 2017 Best Paper of the Year Award from the Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion. In 2009 John Jay College awarded her the Donald MacNamara Award for Junior Faculty, in 2008, 2009, 2012, 2016, and 2019 she was the recipient of John Jay College’s Research Excellence Award, and in 2011 she received the John Jay College's Midcareer Award. Her research focuses on how different contexts (e.g. nations, counties, friendship groups), and personal religious beliefs shape people’s deviant, criminal, and health-related attitudes and behaviors.
REPORT / SESSION 5
Family Practices
in a Time of Many Nones
Dr. Julie Hanlon Rubio (Santa Clara University)
Dr. Julie Rubio
...is the Shea-Heusaman Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Associate Dean at Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California. She has written extensively on marriage, family, sex, and gender in Catholic theological ethics. She is the author of five books and a co-editor of two volumes of essays. Her articles have appeared in academic journals such as Theological Studies, Horizons, the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, and the Journal of Political Theology. She serves on the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops' National Review Board and speaks frequently to Catholic audiences. Her most recent book, Can You Be a Catholic and a Feminist? was published by Oxford University Press in March 2024.