The factors influencing attitudes of Taiwan Catholics regarding sexual ethics were investigated by a survey. The number of Roman Catholics in Taiwan was estimated at 230,000 by the Roman Catholic Church in 2009. Of this total, about half are aboriginal Taiwanese, scattered through seven dioceses. The survey was sent to 405 persons in these seven dioceses, based on a .0017 ratio of the Catholic ...

Does religious commitment have a common political impact across national frontiers? To date, that question has been explored empirically only for Roman Catholics, who might be expected to behave similarly because of centralizing resources in their tradition. This article explores the extent of transnational political attitudes among Jews in the United States and Israel, two groups with less cen...

BACKGROUND Durkheim's seminal historical study demonstrated that religious affiliation reduces suicide risk, but it is unclear whether this protective effect persists in modern, more secular societies. AIMS To examine suicide risk according to Christian religious affiliation and by inference to examine underlying mechanisms for suicide risk. If church attendance is important, risk should be l...

We use the appointment of a Kenyan Roman Catholic archbishop as a natural experiment to analyze the impact of church authorities’ teaching on sexual behavior. Using a triple-difference approach, we find that following the archbishop’s counter-doctrinal assertion that condom use within a marriage can be acceptable to reduce HIV infections, Catholic married couples within the archdiocese who had ...

STUDY OBJECTIVE The geographical pattern of mortality in The Netherlands is dominated by an area of relatively high mortality in the southern part of the country. The aim was to analyse the background of this geographical mortality pattern in the early 1980s, and its evolution over time since the early 1950s. DESIGN Mortality data by district (n = 39), cause of death (13 large causes, "sympto...

The ?Humanae Vitae,? meaning ?Of Human Life? and subtitled ?On the Regulation of Birth,? was an encyclical promulgated in Rome, Italy, on 25 July 1968 by Pope Paul VI [6]. This encyclical defended and reiterated the Roman Catholic Church?s stance on family planning [7] and reproductive issues such as abortion [8], sterilization [9], and contraception [10]. The document continues to have a contr...

There are undoubtedly differences between Roman Catholic and African Pentecostalism such as doctrinal issues salvific conceptualisations. Besides non-Catholics, specifically Pentecostal churches have always been perceived non-churches lacking the real salvation by Catholics. Thus, Catholics looked at Pentecostals with eye of suspicion regardless ecumenical efforts made to bring two together. Si...