A Case Study:Cultural Interpretation Of The College Students’ Belief Of Catholicism

Taking the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Hefei as the field point, college Catholics as study object, and cultural anthropology as research perspective, this article inspects the current situation on contemporary college students’ belief of Catholicism. This article aims to study the underlying reason and features of college students’ religious belief through analysis of their cultural background and psychological situation. It explores the symbol connotation of Catholicism and behavioral meaning of the followers through the thick description of Catholic ceremonies, and explains the influence of religion on college student followers through the function analysis of belief. And it presents the current "collision" between two large forms of Christianity in China and college students’ mental agitation and accommodation when they’re facing belief conflict through the study of comparison with Protestantism. This article hopes to provide beneficial assistance for the implementation of college students’ ideological and political education and moral education as well as the cultivation of socialist core values under the background of restoring the faith life details of college student followers of Catholicism.Part Ⅰ. General condition of Hefei City, the dissemination of Catholicism in Hefei area, and overview of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Hefei and the general information of its college student followers. Located in the interior of East China, Hefei has unique geographical location and cultural features. Our Lady of Lourdes Church is the first-established and the most widely influential Catholic Church organization in Hefei, with its importance remaining till now. College student followers are the major component of church nowadays. They mainly come from all kinds of colleges and universities or academy and higher vocational schools, majoring in various fields including arts, science, engineering, medicine, business&economic, etc.Part Ⅱ. Analysis of the causes and characteristics of college students followers’ belief. The author finds out that the causes of college students establishing Catholic belief can be divided into two parts:the internal causes and the external causes. As for external causes, the influence of family traditions is dominating while the guidance of classmates and missionaries and the involvement of cultural products and mass media are complementary. As for internal causes, they mainly consist of spiritual pursuit such as personal pursuit of the ideal state, the desire of western culture, the contentment of social communication needs and self-value realization. And the realistic appeal about family, education and health are relatively small. College student followers, as the group of "higher intellectuals", show such significant features as high theological accomplishment, spiritual pursuit over utility ones, the existence of "second belief" phenomenon, strong integration and activity capacity when compared with other followers.Part Ⅲ. Meaning analysis on college student followers’ religious ritual and explanation on the function of faith. Religious ritual is an important bridge for followers to link the profane and the scared, as well as a significant channel for us to reveal their belief culture through "symbols". The author chose two rituals that are the most representative and important in Catholics’ faith life:Confession and Mass for thick description. Confession is a vital "tool" for followers to convert between "good" and "evil", while Mass is the primary way for Catholics to communicate with god and gain favor from god. The main function of college students’ belief of Catholicism is to remodel the three reflections of college students, meet and enlarge their social requirement and promote unity of church. The author holds the view that the function of belief varies in different groups of people.At the end of the article, the author analyzed the "collision" between Protestantism and Catholicism in a investigational view through the description of a fellowship activity in a family party of college Protestant students. Through comparison, the author finds out that there is great difference in organizational form, ritual form, missionary form and theology opinion between the two parties. However, fortunately, most college students can stay calm and rational when facing the contradiction of faith which shows their high standard of independent thinking ability and moral level.