SOCIOLOGY
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man who is expected to preach the word. And it is precisely his teaching of the word that binds the community together, for he makes explicit and reinforces_those common values which the members of the community share and which, in principle at least, provide the source of their unity. The leader may or may not be the head of the community, but he is a man to whom the community turns for unity in times of stress and strain, uncertainty and confusion. A religious leader will preach the word and preside over the unity of his community at different times and in different ways in different human situations. A classic model of such leadership can be found in the ethnic immigrant parish of a generation ago. The basic message of loyalty to the faith in the midst of a traumatic transition, and the basic community structure of the comprehensive parish were, of course, less than perfect, for no human community will ever be anything than more or less perfect. But the imperfection and limitations of the immigrant parish and its clear inadequacy in the present situation of the Church ought not to blind us either to its authentic religiousness or the extremely important role it played in the lives of its members. Perhaps the best way to summarize the problem of Catholicism at the present time is that it has not developed a new version of its interpretive scheme or new organizational structure to meet the changing social and cultural situation in which the American Catholic population finds itself. But as I have pointed out elsewhere, Catholicism ought to be in the position of unique advantage in coping with the religious problems of our era. Its fundamental theme--Reality is Love--is in excellent harmony with the increasingly psychological nature of man's religious quest, and its religious community, based ultimately on Jesus' words, "I do not call you servants, I call you friends," is precisely the kind of community for which modern man is looking. It is obvious, of course, that the institutional structures and the traditional formulations of Catholicism need to be modified somewhat if full advantage is going to be taken of the richness of its resources. It is sometimes argued that such modification must await a change in the structure of authority in Catholicism; however, such an argnnient is historically naive. It is quite clear that