The Active and Critical Participation: A Study on Belonging and Believing Among Young Catholics in Rome

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is entitled to be published, however, for this, the same needs to be improved, revised, and with adhesion of missing materials. I address the fact in the points below:

1.  I believe it has to be more precise in the ‘Summary’ and rewrite parts like "Various studies show a progressive distancing". When it doesn’t indicate such studies;

2. In the fragment "As a result of the process of secularization, in recent times, scandals related to sexual abuse (Servaas and Vanderviele 2024)", besides the element of sexual abuse, studies such as F. Py and M. Pedlowski, "Pentecostalism settled at the Zombie Settlement of the Palmares", Theological Perspective, v. 52: https://www.scielo.br/j/pteo/a/LMch3RcxnWhFyJYDRxW5BzM/?lang=pt; highlight the idea of the lack of connection between the practice of Catholic religious leaders with the reality of the most peripheral regions. It is an important element of being attached to this data of "lived religion";

3.  It is worth describing the selection of young people interviewed for the research because the criteria were not clear in the article’s introduction. It is worth highlighting such methodology at the beginning.

4.  Suggestion to normalize the term referred to as religion, religiosity, or religious experience. For example, in the fragment "religions, the spirituality will become a central ingredient for the life since it can hold together person, experience, community, transcendence." Each element dignifies a strand. Or, I leave the suggestion of explaining the idea of "spirituality", "religion" and "transcendence" that is being considered;

5.  It is also important to highlight the notion of "youth" adopted, with the parameters of age and generation considered. 

6.  Also detract from what is meant by "religiosity since intra-religious or extra-religious spiritualities": these concepts. In addition, the article make use of the "spiritual dimension", which should also be debated. 

Hence, the article deserves to be published, however before you need to consider the parts marked, attach the indications on the six points addressed above.

Author Response

We are grateful to the referee for the suggestions made. The English language has been revised with the support of the MDPI editor. 
As suggested in points 1-6 by the referee, some parts have been changed to include the following suggestions:
1. The reference to “various studies” in the abstract (line 3).
2. The reference to Py and M. Pedlowski's essay (line 34) - thanks this element broadens the vision of the challenges facing the Catholic Church
5. The parameters of age and generation have been clarified (lines 173-183)
4.  - 6. the evolution of the concept of spirituality is illustrated in note two. We think, in this way, we have also avoided the overlap between the concepts of spirituality and religion

Thanks again for the support. We think the article is improved in its present form.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Author(s)

Congratulations for your work: The critical involvement. The paper takes an interesting approach to the religiosity of young Roman Catholics. In doing so, the paper dives into the changes that the identity of Catholics has undergone in the last decades. 

The work seems to us to be solid and well referenced in general. Perhaps some reference to the work of José Casanova, one of the fundamental references in the sociology of religion today, or to that of Robert N. Bellah, is missing. 

Although we consider that the paper can be published with minor modifications, we believe that it would have been interesting if the authors could have delved a little deeper into the tension between the Church and the identity of today's young Catholics. If anything has characterized Catholic identity, especially after the Reformation movement, it was the principle "extra ecclesiam nulla salus", well, if, as the authors state, religious experience has become individualized (here it would be interesting to quote Thomas Luckmann) and spiritualized in a scenario of modernity, how has it affected the church as an institute of salvation (Weber). This is a transversal axis for understanding Catholic identity and we would like the authors to put it on record.

Finally, I consider that - without being an expert - perhaps the English translation should be reviewed in depth.

Congratulations once again to the authors.

Kind regards.

 

Author Response

We are grateful for the appreciation received. Thank you
Thanks to the referee also for the suggestions

Point 1:  the references to Bellah and Casanova have been inserted in paragraph 2 (lines 65-68).
Point 2a: in conclusion, we added the suggested reflection on Luckmann and Weber (lines 546-550). We think that developing si this theme could be a topic for a future study
Point 2b: In addition, concerning the issues “extra ecclesiae nulla salus” indirectly was included and underlined in the methodological paragraph when describing the generational characteristics of the young respondents (lines 178-181)

We also improved the English language with the support of the MDPI editor.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper is very interesting the Authors have tapped on a very timely theme. I am sure that it will be very interesting for readers to read it once the following aspects have been taken care of:

1. The presentation in lines 57ff up to lines 79 is very disjointed and the arguments do not seem to follow. It seems that the Authors are seeking to state many things in very short sentences which at times are not clearly  articulated. This needs to be ratified so that the reader will understand the context in which the research is taking place.

2. There are some repeated sentences towards the end of the article. You need to check from lines 534ff to around line 550.

3. The greatest difficulty with this paper is the style and grammar of English in which it is written. See more comments about this in the comments on English language below.

4. Even the title of the paper is inadequate. I suggest that it is changed to something like this: Active Participation: A research on Belonging and Believing among Young Catholics in Rome

5. When these aspects are arranged, then the paper will be more intelligible, understandable and clear and therefore he content of your research will be more communicable. It is in the light of these that the above ratings were given. The problem is not in the contents but in the way in which it is expressed, making it difficult for the reader to follow with ease.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English language needs to be thoroughly revised by the Authors, but it would be better if someone who is very well versed with the English language sees to this.

To me it seems that it was all thought out in Italian and then written in English potentially even with the use of an online translator, because at times the sentences seem to be literal translations from the Italian language. This makes the style very inadequate and heavy. This in itself contributes to making the paper difficult to read and to understand. This requires major changes and I suggest that the paper is given to someone who native language is English so that this is not only revisited  but at times re-written using good sentence structures and grammar which is easy to understand.

Author Response

We are grateful to the referee for their suggestions and careful reading. Language revision was performed with the support of the MDPI editor (points 3 and 5).
We have improved the exposition between lines 57-79 and removed repetitions between lines 534-550 (points 1 and 2)
We welcome the suggestion to edit the title. However, we want to emphasize the critical in addition to the active attitude. So we will change in “Active and Critical Participation: A Research on Belonging and Believing among Young Catholics in Rome.
Thank you for the suggestion

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for amending your article. It is now much better and the acadmeic quality has been enhanced by far.

It is good as it is.

Author Response

Thanks for your appreciation