Fostering the sacred in a secular society: Catholic women practicing religion through intimate relationships

This article aims to contribute to the body of scholarship on lived religion by using intimate relationships as a lens in order to examine religiosity. Based on ethnographic research carried out among practicing Catholic women in Belgium, I unpack Catholic women's understanding of the entanglement between religiosity and relationships by showing the ways in which these women perceive intimate relationships to enable-and at times hinder-their performance of religiosity. I draw on the study of lived religion in a twofold manner. Firstly, I mobilize it as an ethnographic tool to capture the experiences and practices of the women with respect to intimate relationships. Secondly, I contribute to the further theorization of the field by investigating religiosity and how religion is practiced in a non-religious setting, i.e. coupledom in a secular society. Hence, in this article I propose a novel road of inquiry that utilizes intimate relationships as a lens to understand how religion is enacted on an everyday basis. In doing so, we may come to see intimate relationships as a site where religiosity is constructed and performed, in particular against the background of a secularizing society in which Catholicism is no longer the default option as it once was.

Automated summary

This article explores the religiosity of Catholic women in Belgium through the lens of intimate relationships. It examines how these women perceive the entanglement between religiosity and relationships and how intimate relationships enable or hinder their religious practices. The study contributes to the field of lived religion by using ethnographic research to capture the experiences of women in intimate relationships and by investigating the practice of religion in a secular society.