Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter One Situating the Research -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Secularization Theory: Premises and Predictions -- 3. Criticisms and Attempts to Redefine the Field -- 4. Conceptualizing the Subject Matter -- 5. Description of the Research -- Chapter Two Moral Discourses in Dutch Catholicism: from Pillarization, via Liberation to Polarization -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Catholic in Everything: Triumph and Moral Anxiety -- 3. From Moralizing to Psychologizing -- 4. The Local Church Versus Papal Power Play -- 5. Catholicism in Limburg -- 6. Concluding Remarks -- Chapter Three Narratives of the Past, Progress and Polarization -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Representations of the Past -- 3. Changes -- 4. Polarization -- 5. Comparison of Past and Present -- 6. Concluding Remarks -- Chapter Four Religious Authority, Ritual and the Familiar -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Rituals Around Death and Dying -- 3. Becoming Modern -- 4. Re-Signification of the Catholic Tradition -- 5. Concluding Remarks -- Chapter Five Practicing Spirituality -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Power and Knowledge -- 3. Relationships and the Demands of Individualism -- 4. Sceptical Positivism -- 5. Spiritual Consumer Culture -- 6. Concluding Remarks -- Chapter Six Liberal Catholicism: The Burden of the Past and the Problem of the Present -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Sacralization of Uncertainty -- 3. The Burden of the Past -- 4. The Problem of the Present -- 5. Gossip and Stereotyping -- 6. Concluding Remarks -- Chapter Seven Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index of Modern Authors -- Index of Subjects and Persons.