Where The Catholic Population Has Changed the Most

What part of the country has become more Catholic in the last 25 years? If one were to look at Catholic population growth it would be apparent that there are more Catholics in states where there are more people in 2025 than in 2000. Generally, when populations grow in the U.S., the number of Catholics grows. This can happen through natural increases (more births than deaths) as well as migration and immigration. Two states stand out here in recent years: Texas and Florida. On a regional level, the South has experienced a net gain of more than 7.4 million Catholics from 2000 to 2025. The West has seen minimal net growth adding 1 million Catholics. At the same time the Northeast lost 4.4 million Catholics and the Midwest lost 2.3 million in the last 25 years. This is all part of a broader long-term shift of the U.S. population from the “Rust Belt” of the Northeast and Midwest to the “Sun Belt” of the South and to a lesser extent the West.

The changes described above have occurred during an unusual period of decreasing mobility in the population. In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that approximately 17% of the population moved during the year. This has steadily declined to an annual rate of about 12% in 2024.

There are a few “outliers” in the overall population change patterns described above when one is specifically looking at Catholics. First, it’s important to note that these estimations are based on the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB) decennial Religion Census, three Pew Research Center Religious Landscape Surveys, and the Comparative Study of Electoral System (CSES) surveys. Each of these collections has varying methods and limitations.

Reviewing what we can, it is apparent that states like Alaska and South Carolina stand out. In the 2000s, Alaska’s Catholic population was just over 50,000. Currently, Catholics number more than 110,000 in the state for a 111% increase over the last 25 years. Meanwhile, Alaska saw just 18% overall population growth during this period. South Carolina has shown incremental growth in its Catholic population over time. In 2000, just 3% of the state was Catholic and this more than doubled in the last 25 years. The Catholic population of South Carolina grew by more than 250% while the state overall experienced 37% population growth. In 2000, Catholics numbered about 136,000 in the state and now in 2025 represent more than 450,000. South Carolina is a Southern state. Thus, it is part of that shift to the Sun Belt. However, Catholics are growing in number here at a pace well above this general population shift.

There are other Southern states where we can see the Catholic population growth rate outpacing the total population growth rates. These include North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. Outside of this Southern shift there are a few other states where Catholic numbers are outpacing overall growth. Oklahoma has seen its Catholic population rise from just under 170,000 in 2000 to more than 350,000 in 2024 (growing by 80% compared to 23% for the total population). Nevada has seen its Catholic population rise from more than 330,000 in 2000 to approximately 695,000 in 2024 (growing by 107% compared to 64% for the total population).    

It’s important to note that states with rapid Catholic population growth are not the most Catholic in absolute numbers by any means. California remains the state with the largest number of Catholics followed by Texas, New York, and Florida. South Carolina sits in the middle of the pack of states in terms of its Catholic population size and Alaska is near the bottom.

Does AI Know Who the Pope Is?

We are undoubtedly in the feeding frenzy phase of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption. As of today, Sam Altman, the OpenAI chief has declared AI may be more intelligent than humans, noting "We are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started."

My response to Mr. Altman, to quote a line from Billy Madison (1995), "What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard..." How could I (jokingly) say such a thing? AI is everywhere. Maybe even your toaster? There is a well understood pattern to technology adoption. When you were a kid you may have had a little red wagon called a "Radio Flyer." What did a wagon have to do with radio? Nothing. But the toy wagon was made during the early age of flight and radio and it was a popular thing to link it to these new technologies as a marketing ploy. In other words, if you think AI is everywhere now just wait until this Christmas gift buying season. Take Altman's declarations of crossing an "event horizon" cautiously as he continues to seek more investors.

Our executive director has told me people will ask him from time to time how CARA is using AI. I told him to let them know we are hesitant to do so because AI isn't Catholic. That's more than a joke. We specialize in doing research about and for the Church and in this way must speak intelligently about theology and Church history in the language specific to Catholicism. 

But AI knows everything right? Well does it actually "know" anything? Or is it just very fast at processing extremely large databases of information and past experience? I'll be honest no one really knows how AI works. But we can get a sense from interacting with it.

I asked ChatGPT to describe the recent conclave to me in the following way:

It's not that ChatGPT won't tell you who the current pope is if directly asked, "Who is the current pope?" You can see the response below: 

With one query Pope Leo XIV has never existed and in the next he does. Notice in the second ChatGPT is relying on searching the internet and returning information from the Vatican, Crux, ... and Wikipedia! Welcome to the "event horizon" of the age of internet regurgitation packaged in a narrative that sounds fairly human. Is that AI? Is it even intelligent? Is it any better than Google circa 2000? I know my answer, for now.

ChatGPT does have a recent events "blindspot." When its most recent training does not include current or even recent events it must use search just like the rest of us to look for information it doesn't have. But it can usually recover quickly. 

For example, on July 12, 2024 a video about "The Weirdest Hoax on the Internet" was released. This told the story of a student at the University of Surrey named Alan MacMasters who was cautioned by a professor about the quality of research sources. This inspired Alan and his friends, in 2013, to create a fake Wikipedia page claiming that a fictional man named Alan MacMasters invented the electric toaster in 1893. For many years this fake page made it into newspapers, local holidays honoring MacMasters, and even bread commercials. It became "real" history. When I asked ChatGPT who invented the electric toaster on July 12, 2024, the date of the video about the hoax was released, ChatGPT responded, Alan MacMasters. A day later, on July 13, 2024, it correctly returned the history of the development of the electric toaster without the fictional information.  

Yet, we are now more than a month past the conclave and ChatGPT cannot correctly explain the selection of Pope Leo XIV and instead claims he may be a fictional character. This is the technology corporations are relying on and human beings are losing their jobs to? Seriously?

I asked ChatGPT in June 2025 to "Please generate a painting of the current pope." It responded:

Here is the image that was created of the "current" pope:
 

How does CARA currently use AI? For now, you just read it. It's not ready or useful to us as a reliable and factual research resource (we're not alone). It may be in the future. I am confident of it. For now, its hype is bigger than its utility. Perhaps when we get to a point where we have future iterations of AI models running on quantum computers we will have something truly special as Altman is currently trying to sell (...or not).

We'll surely at least wait for ChatGPT to catch up with the rest of humanity and become fully aware of Pope Leo XIV's existence (...and maybe until it can beat an Atari 2600 at chess).  

...An update from July 10, 2025. I decided to upload a picture of Pope Leo XIV and ask GhatGPT to identify the person in the photo. I already knew it did not know of Pope Leo XIV but I thought it might be able to identify him as Bishop or Cardinal Prevost. What I got is below. It's comically bad...

 

...An update from August 7, 2025. ChatGPT has been updated. It's most recent training now includes information up to this month. So I checked again. Same routine. I asked how Pope Leo XIV was selected and got the same response indicating no awareness of the current pope. I then told the model to check again about the current pope using search (i.e., equivalent to any Google search you or I could do) and to ChatGPT's surprise Pope Leo XIV does exist! I then asked ChatGPT when it thought it would have an awareness of Pope Leo XIV without relying on search. Here is the response:

 

 

One would assume that training through August 2025 would include the events of May 2025. But then again we are dealing with the weird, wacky, and inaccurate reality of AI. It's a whole different realm!

Watching Mass Online Remains Elevated Even With Mass Attendance Back to 2019 Levels

Five years ago, when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and lockdowns began, many U.S. Catholics turned online to continue some semblance of worship on Sundays. Google search volumes for “Catholic Mass” increased 458% from what they were in February 2020. Prior to the pandemic, the search volumes for Catholic Mass on YouTube were comparatively low all the way back to January 2008, when measurements became possible.

Search volumes vary from 0 to 100. From January 2008 to February 2020, the average monthly search volume for Catholic Mass on YouTube was 6. This rose to an average of 78 from March 2020 through April 2022. After this time through today, the search volume for Catholic Mass has been 39. This tends to rise some during months including Ash Wednesday, Easter, and Christmas.

It appears the pandemic has created a new habit. Although in-person Mass attendance has returned to pre-pandemic levels, there is still a higher demand for watching Catholic Mass online than before the pandemic. This is not as high as it was during the peak interest period from March 2020 to April 2022, but is still elevated enough to represent a significant new behavior adopted by Catholics that did not exist as broadly in the past.