ABSTRACT
Anthony Giddens defines self-identity very simply as ‘the self as reflexively understood by the individual in terms of his or her biography’ (1991:244). For Berger and his colleagues, identity meant ‘the actual experience of self in a particular social situation . . . the manner in which individuals define themselves. As such, identity is part and parcel of a specific structure of consciousness’ (1974:73). These will serve for our present purposes. What I have in mind is the response which people in England who acknowledge themselves to be Roman Catholic make to the question: ‘What do you mean when you say you are a Roman Catholic?’ I aim to explore to what extent an individual Catholic identity has replaced a more ascribed, communally based, religio-ethnic identity.
