Asian Catholicism and the Remaking of Contemporary Families

Foreword by José Casanova

Asian Catholicism and the Remaking of Contemporary Families attends to the ways in which Asian Catholics navigate and negotiate the ethical ideals, normative discourses, and devotional practices of their religion as they construct and reconstruct their understandings of the family in contemporary society. In addition to family structures based on biological ties, contributors to this volume also examine other kinship groups based on systems of mutual care, highlighting the multiple perspectives and diverse values shared by Asian Catholics who produce and define social groupings that are recognized as families. Featuring case studies from South, Southeast, and East Asia, these chapters complicate the conventional view that Catholicism disrupts local cultures, considering not only how Asian families and Catholicism mutually constitute and transform each other in terms of interfaith dialogue, ethnic identity, and clergy-laity dynamics, but also how marriage, kinship, and filial piety become sites of active engagement and constant negotiation with their faith in the shaping and living of their family relations.