Nineteen Sixty-four

How Much Schooling Do You Need to Best Understand a Papal Homily?

2012-01-25T18:06:00.002-05:00

There is an article over at Politico regarding the "grade level" quality of communication for last night's State of the Union speech. The author seems to think that the 8th grade comprehension level which is noted as, "the third lowest score of any State of the Union address since 1934," is of some concern. As someone who has used the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula in the past I don't think there is too much to worry about. For one, the formula is a bit flawed (designed to make sure a textbook fits the grade using it) and gives the highest scores to long, complex text using large words. Someone speaking in a stream of conscious manner will score highly but also may be entirely incoherent. Clear and concise speech gets lower "grades" but this speech is often more favorable in terms of communication.

Politico seems to think that "Obama's use of simple language is in part a reflection of his audience. ... And it's part of a larger trend in simpler State of the Union language as the speech as transitioned from a simple address to Congress into a prime-time televised event." It is very much more the later—the effects of the medium. The American audience is significantly more educated now than it has been at any time in history. The figure below shows the average grade level for presidential Inaugural Addresses since 1789. The highest score ever was for Washington's first at 25.0 (that's like two Ph.D.s!). Since 1973, these speeches have averaged 8.9. As these evolved from something that most people read in their newspaper to something that was broadcast (first on radio and then on television), the communication has simplified. Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, and George H. W. Bush all gave Inaugural Addresses with lower scores than Obama's 2009 speech.

This made me wonder... How would communications from Pope Benedict XVI grade out? I ran the numbers on his homilies since September. The trend is below:

The Holy Father's homilies (translated in English) have been averaging 11.6 in recent months with a high score of 15.5 and a low of 9.1. Now it is the case that these homilies are very often read by more people than they are heard in person. Translation issues may also affect the scores. It is also the case that one might expect the content of his homilies to be a bit more complex than a modern president's State of the Union or Inaugural Address.

For comparison I went back and ran the numbers on eight homilies given by Pope John Paul II during his October 1979 apostolic visit to the United States. The average grade level for these is 10.7 with a low of 8.1 and a high of 13.1.

It appears one needs about an 11th grade education, on average, to best understand a papal homily and about an 8th grade education to do the same with an American president's speech.

[Note: the blog above is written at a 11.0 grade level.]

New Year, A Bit of New Research

2012-01-24T16:56:00.004-05:00

Here are a few brief research odds and ends that have piled up to begin the new year...

Did Catholics come home?

We have no Mass attendance polling or headcount data. Yet, it is clear by some measure that the national Catholics Come Home (CCH) television advertisements had an impact in December. Evidence of the number of Catholics seeing the CCH videos, connecting with the CCH website and then some following through with seeking out parishes and Masses jumped up last month.

At the time of this post, Quantcast indicated that the CCH website ranked in the top 15,000 sites for traffic in the U.S. The tracking firm estimates that individual visitors from the U.S. in December were up 2,506% from November to a total of 179,239 (by comparison there were only an estimated 1,800 visitors to the CCH site in August 2011).

Alexa estimates that 85% of CCH website visitors are from the U.S. and that more than 1,200 other websites link to CCH. The quarterly “daily reach” (the percentage of web users visiting) has been up 430% (Nov.-Jan.) and page views have been up 570% during the same period (about 3 page views per user for more than 3:30 minutes).

Alexa also indicates that only 13% of CCH site visitors come from a search engine. Yet, even here—specifically on Google—there was an uptick in Advent. More people searched for “Catholics Come Home” during the last few weeks than at any other time in the past.

Google Trends indicates that CCH’s long-term top markets for search volume are in Louisiana, Massachusetts, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, New York. The latter three states are the largest and would be expected to be among the leaders. The preceding states include dioceses that have all had specific CCH campaigns in previous Lent and Advent seasons. The Google Trends data also indicate a potential need for new spots. In many of the states with dioceses that have done a CCH campaign there was not as much of a jump in Google search activity during Advent 2012.

Did CCH bring people back to parishes? One indicator of interest from Alexa is that nearly one in five who visited the CCH website (18.3%) went looking for a Mass time by immediately visiting masstimes.org. Seven percent of CCH visitors go to divorcedcatholic.com for their next site. Also, since writing a previous blog on this topic, the CCH YouTube channel has increased its subscribers by 10% and its video views by 16%.

Did more people read the Gospel of John this month?

Want to know how to get people to read the Bible? Apparently it's all in Tim Tebow's passing yards. Two weeks ago when Tebow passed for 316 yards to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers this total did not go unnoticed as his game winning touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas generated 9,420 tweets per second (#2 all-time in activity). Tebow, already famous for wearing John 3:16 in his eye black in college, unwittingly caused quite a new media frenzy directed right at the Bible. It is likely that more Americans sought out John 3:16 online or in their Bible at home in the 24 hours after that touchdown pass than on any other single day in U.S. history. It was the top search term on Google for most of the day after the game (see above). The only other day similar? The other spike on the graph is when Tebow wore John 3:16 in his eye black during the BCS National Championship Game in 2009.

For some context, the chart below shows the relative search volume indexes for "John 3 16" and "Catholics Come Home."

In the first few weeks of January, for every 100 people searching "John 3 16" there were 5 people searching for "Catholics Come Home."

Both of the notes above point to a continuing reality. TV is still king of the media world and can drive people to new media and their faith in ways that are not always easily imagined. The bigger challenge for the Church is to try to get the Catholics who may have come back to a Mass in December to continue to do so this weekend or those who may have looked up John 3:16 a few weeks ago to read the Bible today.

Catholic schools make a difference

With Catholic Schools Week just around the corner we've had some inquiries here at CARA about studies that show the effects of Catholic schooling on enrolled children. Most who inquire are interested in evidence of the religious or spiritual impact (the academic results are often publicly available in test scores, etc.). Published research on these effects are a mixed bag. Here at CARA we have shown that schooling can be a buffer against disaffiliation.

How might this be the case? Part of it may be in the extra emphasis Catholic children get on the Sacraments while in a Catholic school. In CARA's Sacraments Today survey we found that among Millennials (those born 1982 or later), nearly all Catholic students at Catholic elementary schools celebrate their First Communions and more than nine in ten who attend a Catholic high school are confirmed.

Only eight in ten Catholic Millenials who do not attend a Catholic elementary school celebrate their First Communion and only two-thirds of those not attending are confirmed.

Native American Catholics

In December, a final miracle needed for canonization of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha was approved. Then and in the past CARA has been contacted for estimates for the size of the Native American Catholic population today. This is a difficult question to answer. One issue is that the population is of a size that makes it difficult to study using national surveys. The second is the complex construction of Native American identity which can range from formal tribal membership to distant ancestral affiliation.

If one utilizes the General Social Survey (GSS) from the last decade and the U.S. Census estimates can be made. The GSS asks, What is your race? Indicate one or more races that you consider yourself to be. This question identifies a total of 155 Native American/Alaska Native respondents on first reference (1% of the U.S. adult population) in the sample from 2000 to 2010 (±0.8 percentage point margin of sampling error). A total of 25 or 16.1% of these respondents self-identify their religion as Catholic. Extrapolating to 2012 that would mean there are more than 500,000 Catholics who self-identify as Native American on first reference (or about 0.6% of the U.S. Catholic population).

If one includes secondary and third self-identified references (the broadest definition possible with the GSS), the total Native American/Alaska Native respondents for the period is 653 (an additional 472 on second reference and 27 on third reference; this total represents 4% of the U.S. adult population). A total of 79 or 12.1% of these respondents self-identify their religion as Catholic. Extrapolating to 2012 with this broader definition there are an estimated 1.6 million Catholics who self-identify as Native American in some way representing 1.8% of the U.S. Catholic population.

Measuring Up and Down: Vatican and Pew
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life recently released country by country population estimates by different Christian faith groups. Among these is an estimate for the size of the Catholic population in each country around the world. These estimates are based on country-level census data and surveys. The Vatican releases Catholic population estimates annually in the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae (ASE). There are a few years difference between the Pew estimates and the most recent ASE but all the same one would expect the figures to be very similar.

So where does the Vatican apparently underestimate the number of Catholics? According to Pew at the top of the list are the United States and Germany. Pew estimates that there are 27.9 million Catholics in Germany compared to only 25.1 million estimated in the 2009 ASE. One frequently sees in the media that the Catholic population of the U.S. is likely about 65 million. Pew puts the current number of U.S. Catholics well above this at 74.5 million (the ASE estimates 69.9 million; CARA has noted for years that the ASE and The Official Catholic Directory underestimate the U.S. Catholic population).

One other area of the world that likely needs to come to terms with a more realistic number of its Catholics is the United Kingdom and Ireland. Comparisons are complicated here by the fact that the Vatican's ASE provides a combined Catholic population total for Ireland and Northern Ireland. However, if one takes the total number of Catholics reported by Pew in the UK and Ireland this totals 14 million. The ASE estimates that there are only 10.5 million Catholics in the UK and Ireland combined. The biggest surprise may be Pew's estimate for the number of Catholics in the UK alone which is at 10 million.

There apparently are other areas of the world where the Church overestimates the number of Catholics. Brazil is an extreme outlier where the ASE estimates that there are 163.9 million Catholics. The Pew study revises this down to 133.7 million. Other countries likely overestimating their numbers of Catholics include France, India, Spain, Italy, and Argentina. Each is more than 6 million off the Pew estimate. For example, the ASE estimate for the number of Catholics in India is 18.6 million. Pew finds evidence for only 10.6 million.

Yes Virginia, there are still Christians (including Catholics) in Europe

2011-12-23T15:58:00.013-05:00

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released a report this week on the size and distribution of the world’s Christian population entitled, Global Christianity. For religion researchers there is not much that is new or surprising in this report. Similar estimates are widely available and used in the field (e.g., ARDA, World Christian Database, World Values Survey, regional barometer surveys, and even the CIA World Factbook). But for the media and the public this report provides a well-done, fresh look at how Christianity has changed in the last century.

The finding that seemed to catch the most attention among religion reporters was the following from the Pew researchers’ executive summary: “In 1910, about two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe, where the bulk of Christians had been for a millennium, according to historical estimates by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Today, only about a quarter of all Christians live in Europe (26%).”

Here is how this statement often got translated in the news (emphasis added):

Nadia Gilani of the Daily Mail (UK):
“Christians remain the largest religious group in the world despite their population migrating from Europe to Africa, Asia and the Americas according to a new study.”

G. Jeffrey Macdonald of Religion News Service:
“With 2.18 billion adherents, Christianity has become a truly global religion during the past century as rapid growth in developing nations offset declines in traditional strongholds, according to a report released Monday.”

Christianity Today:
“A hundred years ago, the centre of Christianity was Europe. Today, Christianity is declining across its former heartland as the church rises in Africa, Asia and the Americas.”

Finally, here is one of the better stories on the study:

Raja Abdulrahim of The Los Angeles Times:
“In 1910, about two-thirds of Christians lived in Europe, where the majority had resided for a millennium. But as Christianity has grown in other parts of the world, the population has seen a shift.”

Have Christians migrated in mass from Europe? Are there fewer Christians in Europe? No to both.

There are more Christians (and Catholics) in Europe now than there have ever been at any time in history. There are growing numbers of individuals without a religious affiliation (i.e., the Nones) and globalization has brought many non-Christians to the continent from other areas of the world. This has altered the percentage of Europeans who identify themselves as a Christian. But population is not a zero-sum game! A smaller population percentage does not equate a smaller number of that population when the overall population is growing.

Vatican statistics have long documented the global shift among Catholics that is noted in the report. For example, below is a figure including Vatican estimates for the global proportions of Catholics by region. In 1900, 68% of the world’s Catholics resided in Europe. In 2009 (most recent data available), this had fallen to just 24%. Crisis? Not quite.

The pie has gotten much bigger. There are more Catholics in the world and Europe’s slice makes up a smaller share of the whole pie but it’s still a heck of a lot bigger piece than it was in 1900. The figure below shows the total population numbers by region.

Europe’s Catholic population has grown by 57% since 1900 from 180 million to 284 million today. There has been no decline in the number of Catholic Europeans. Mass attendance has certainly declined (more in some European countries than others) but the total population affiliated with the faith has continued to grow on the continent.

There was also no great “migration” as the Daily Mail suggests. Africa and Asia do not have more Christians because they moved from Europe. Evangelization has clearly been important but so has another factor that is not mentioned prominently in the study or the news reports about it—fertility.

In many European countries the fertility rate dropped below what is needed for growth (2.1 or above) in the last century. Immigration has filled the gap somewhat—often bringing non-Christians to Europe. At the same time, in many areas of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, population growth has quickened with declines in infant and maternal mortality rates.

As a simple example think of two women: one lives in a country with a fertility rate of 2 and the other lives in a country with a fertility rate of 5. Then assume they live out these fertility rates as do their offspring. The first woman will eventually have 8 great grandchildren. The second woman will have 125 (and 625 great great grandchildren). That is the difference between a low fertility and high fertility nation/region. The growth in the proportion of Christians in what Pew calls the Global South (and smaller proportions in Europe) is largely a function of effective Christian evangelization and differences in fertility rates (sprinkled with a bit of globalization and secularization).

In the figure below (World Bank data via Google Public Data Explorer), you can see the differences in fertility rates over time around the world. Just hit the arrow button to play out the changes that have occurred in the last 50 years. Note, fertility rates have dropped around the globe but the key is the number and regional distribution of countries falling below 2.0 on the y-axis. You'll find most of Europe in this part of the graph.

How to explain the regional differences in fertility? Strangely enough a lot of it is economics. You can see the same fertility trends (this rate is on the y-axis) play out in the figure below with the addition of GDP per capita on the x-axis and the size of the bubbles representing total population (pause the player and place your cursor over a bubble to identify country). Although countries like China and India have the largest populations (including sizable numbers of Catholics), for the future keep an eye on the number of Christians in Nigeria which is expected to grow substantially in the 21st century (currently the home to 20 million Catholics and nearly 60 million Protestants).

Buon Natale!

Above photo courtesy of dalbera at Flickr Creative Commons.

“C and E” Catholics Decoded

2011-12-22T13:52:00.005-05:00

You’ve spent the last four weeks singing “O Come O Come Emmanuel” and getting used to the new Missal translation. You’ve watched the Advent candles be lit, celebrated the beginning of the new liturgical year, and readied yourself in “joyful anticipation” for Christmas. Maybe you’ve headed to a Christmas concert (or two), maybe you’ve had family pictures taken (awkward or otherwise).

And then the big day (or Midnight Mass) comes–and there is a stranger sitting in your pew!

Yes, it’s the most wonderful time of the year–and with it come back our brothers and sisters we affectionately call “C and E” Catholics (Christmas and Easter). Who are these people who flock to our pews two times a year? And, how many people are we talking about fit into this camp? Actually, just over half of self-identified adult Catholics attend Mass once or twice a year or less often (data source: CARA’s Sacraments Today). These are the guys (...more often men than women) in green below (56%). Forty-four percent of self-identified Catholics, those in red below, attend Mass more frequently.

These “C and E” Catholics are young and have some of the traits we associate with this demographic. They are less likely to be living in a home they have bought and less likely to be married. Expect a more youthful look around your parish Sunday with more than six in ten Catholics born after 1960 fitting into the “C and E” Catholic mold.

They also have differing opinions on the meaningfulness of the Sacraments. They are less likely than regular Mass attenders to say that each of the Sacraments is “very meaningful” to them. In fact, regular Mass attenders are twice as likely as the “C and Es” to say that most of the Sacraments are “very meaningful” to them.

When asked to select which of the Sacraments that is the most meaningful to them, regular Mass attenders most often selected the Eucharist (43%), compared to less frequent attenders, who selected baptism most often (42%). So-called “C and Es” are also less likely than more regular Mass attenders to believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist (40% to 79%, respectively).

These differences in meaningfulness of the Sacraments may be rooted in a lack of early engagement. Those who attend Mass less frequently are slightly less likely (but still statistically significantly) than those who more regularly attend Mass to have fulfilled their early Sacramental rites, including First Communion and Confirmation.

So, when they are sitting in your pew this Christmas, just what are they looking for in the Mass? When asked how important each of the parts of Mass are to them, “C and Es” responded that the following aspects were “very important” to them:

Feeling the presence of God (66 percent)
Prayer and reflection (62 percent)
Receiving Communion (55 percent)
Hearing the readings and the Gospel (47 percent)
Hearing the homily (31 percent)
Worshiping with other people (23 percent)
The music (22 percent)
The church environment and decorations (22 percent)

And, not to judge, but what do the data say about why these people may be in my pew just once or twice a year? Why have they missed Mass? Turns out, it is a combination of not thinking missing Mass is a sin and not being very religious.

My advice to you is the same advice I give my children when they are frustrated: take a deep breath, smile, and remember that God loves you and all of creation. There may be less room in the pew but that makes it an even merrier Christmas!

-By CARA Research Associate and Director of Parish Surveys Melissa Cidade

Above photo courtesy of HerryLawford at Flickr Creative Commons. Linked concert vocals by Margaret Cidade-Harkleroad and the Saint Francis International School Choir.

Young Adult Catholics Haven’t Lost God’s Number

2011-12-16T13:10:00.004-05:00

When I was a kid, just beginning to learn about the Catholic faith, I thought making the sign of the cross before prayer was how you "dialed God's phone number." The statue in the image above, an angel with a cell phone to her ear, is from St. John's Cathedral in the Netherlands and is quite a literal translation of the idea of "calling God."

These days many are concerned that young adult Catholics have "lost" God's phone number or are just no longer interested in talking. It is the case that the most common time for someone raised in the faith to leave it, is in the teens and early 20s. At the same time it is also the case that Catholicism keeps more of its young faithful in the United States than any major Protestant denomination. The rise of the Nones—those without a religious affiliation—is almost a mirror image of the decline in young adult Americans affiliating with some other Christian denomination (source: General Social Survey). As the figure below shows, in 1972, 58% of those age 18 to 35 in the United States self-identified their religion with a Christian faith other than Catholicism (mostly Protestant denominations). In 2010, this had fallen 16 percentage points to 42%. During this same period the percentage of people in this age group lacking a religious affiliation rose from 9% to 26% (+17 percentage points).

Catholic affiliation among U.S. young adults has remained much more stable dropping 3 percentage points from 29% in 1972 to 26% in 2010 (this difference is within margin of error). The percentage of young adults affiliating with some other non-Christian religion has also remained stable.

Although the affiliation numbers are reassuring the estimates for the Mass attendance of young adults is far less positive. Catholics between the ages of 18 and 35 attend less frequently than older and younger Catholics (who are brought to church by their parents). Currently only about 16% of Catholics between the ages of 18 and 35 attend Mass every week. By comparison 37% of Catholic young adults attended every week in 1972 (a decline of 21 percentage points).

As the percentage of weekly Mass attenders has grown smaller, the share of Catholic young adults saying they attend Mass less than weekly but at least once a month has increased from 19% in 1972 to 32% in 2010 (an increase of 13 percentage points). Those saying they attend only a few times a year, less than annually, or never have remained more stable over time. If there is any silver lining in these data it is the fact that many young adults have not fallen completely away from their faith and still have some consistent connection to parish life.

The difference in the data between affiliation/identity and the practice of the faith is still remarkable. Of course so much of the Catholic faith is in action; in doing things rather than just believing them. Going to Mass and celebrating the Eucharist are essential. Is there any evidence that young adult Catholics are still calling God in some other way?

The figure below shows changes in frequency of prayer among young adult Catholics. Consistently about four in ten have reported daily prayer during the last three decades in which this question has been asked in the GSS. Also solidly consistent is the number indicating prayer at least once a week. Most young adults Catholics, about three in four in all, are having at least one conversation with God every week. They just aren't doing it in a brick and mortar parish. It is as if more recent cohorts of young adults have come to think of the parish as the "land line" connection to God—one they don't need as much or anymore given their personal connection to God through individual prayer.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for the 21st century Catholic parish is to make the case for community and celebration within its walls for young adults who more often shun real world gatherings and tangible memberships for virtual content and connections (and they apparently are not doing much related to their faith online either 1, 2).

So it's not that young adult Catholics have hung up the phone and ended the conversation. The affiliation and prayer data are quite reassuring. Even the Mass attendance data shows that nearly half are in a parish at least once a month. The bigger questions are about how the Church can convince young adults to be there more often and how it can make the case to them to take their more regular personal prayer connection to God and share this with others as a parish community.

Catholic Climate Change

2011-11-22T15:03:00.000-05:00

Changes to the liturgy are taking effect this weekend. The new English translation is designed to be more consistent with the original Latin.

Where are American Catholics on the issue of change in general? It’s a mixed weather pattern.

In Pew’s 2007 Religious Landscape Survey there is a question that asks, “Thinking about your religion, which of the following statements comes closest to your view? My church or denomination should preserve its traditional beliefs and practices; or adjust traditional beliefs and practices in light of new circumstances; or adopt modern beliefs and practices.”

A majority of U.S. Catholics surveyed responded that the Church should either “adjust traditional beliefs and practices in light of new circumstances” (44%) or “adopt modern beliefs and practices” (14%). More than a third (35%) indicated that the Church should “preserve its traditional beliefs and practices.” The remainder volunteered another response, didn’t know, or refused to answer. The map below displays the “preserve its traditional beliefs and practices” responses by state.

Respondents in states shaded in blue or purple have the highest percentages of Catholics responding that the Church should “preserve its traditional beliefs and practices.” Catholic respondents in states shaded in yellow and orange are least likely to respond as such (i.e., more likely to prefer change).

The traditionalists are in greatest number in Kansas (54%), North Dakota (52%), Arkansas (48%), Utah (46%), and Kentucky (45%). There appears to be concentrations of traditionalism in the South and Central West. The winds of change appear to blow strongest in New Hampshire (23%), Maine (26%), Wyoming (26%), Delaware (26%), and Massachusetts (27%). A New England concentration for change is evident.

Catholics perceptions of how much change is occurring in the Church are a bit less stormy. A few months ago a CBS News Poll asked a national sample, “When it comes to social and political issues, would you say the Catholic church has become more liberal since Pope Benedict has become leader of the Catholic church, more conservative, or would you say the Catholic church hasn't changed much since Pope Benedict has become the leader of the Catholic church?”

In terms of political and social issues, few Catholics and non-Catholics perceive change. Seven in ten Catholics say there is “not much change.” Smaller and nearly equal numbers feel the Church has become more liberal (8%) or more conservative (9%).

Many non-Catholics appear either to not have enough information or are not paying close enough attention to the Church to make an evaluation. The most popular response was “don’t know.”

Above photo courtesy of Wes Rogers at Flickr Creative Commons.

Catholics come home... But just for a visit?

2011-11-09T11:57:00.005-05:00

Catholics Come Home (CCH) is going national. After several years of diocesan campaigns conducted during Advent and Lent, the highly regarded television and YouTube ads will be shown on prime time television across the United States from Dec. 16 through Jan. 8. What effect could this have? The story announcing the news indicates, “The organization hopes to inspire as many as one million Catholics to return to local parishes.” This story also notes that “Since it began its media campaigns in 2008, Catholics Come Home has increased Mass attendance an average of 10 percent in the markets where the ads have shown and has brought 300,000 people back to the Church.”

The CCH website includes a series of change measurements for their campaigns in dioceses. For example, in the Diocese of Phoenix (Lent 2008) Mass attendance is estimated to have increased 12%. Even more reportedly returned in the Diocese of Corpus Christi (Lent 2009 up 17.7%). Results in the Archdiocese of Seattle (Lent 2010 up 4.5%) and in the Diocese of Colorado Springs (Advent 2009 up 6.1%) were a bit more modest. Taken all together, with the previous diocesan campaigns and now the national effort, this means that in January 2012 we might expect about 1.3 million more Catholics will be active in the Church than were active in January 2008 (beyond what we would expect through population growth, other evangelization efforts, and just normal life-cycle returns).

As much as I personally find “Epic: 120” to be appealing and uplifting (it reminds me a bit of Ronald Reagan’s 1984 classic political ad “Morning Again in America”), the social scientist in me is naturally skeptical of some of the cause and effect claims made regarding these ads. I specifically have concerns about how CCH and others have apparently measured some of the reported Mass attendance effects of these campaigns.

If you are measuring changes in Mass attendance you must pay very close attention to the Church calendar and only compare attendance during similar periods (i.e., “apples to apples”). There are regularly understood seasonal changes in Mass attendance each Advent and Lent—with or without television commercials. And this is no recent phenomenon. It’s been occurring for decades—perhaps first documented in studies by Father Joseph H. Fichter, S.J. such as, Southern Parish: The Dynamics of a City Church (Volume I, University of Chicago Press, 1951). Currently, CARA surveys estimate that 23% of self-identified adult Catholics attend Mass every week. Yet, in any given average week, 31% of Catholics are attending. During Lent and Advent, Mass attendance increases into the mid-40% range and on Christmas and Easter, an estimated 68% of Catholics attend.

Take for example the Diocese of Green Bay where this CCH Mass attendance comparison was made: “A Mass attendance census, taken on two weekends in over 150 area parishes last April, found a 7.4 percent increase compared to an October 2009 census.” October headcounts—done in nearly all dioceses—are completed at this time of year because it is in Ordinary Time and can be considered a period of relatively “typical” levels of attendance. There are two periods of the year with consistent and sustained increases in attendance—Advent and Lent—the periods when Catholics Come Home do their diocesan campaigns. There should be no surprise that Mass attendance during these periods is higher than in October in any diocese.

Michael Cieslak, Ed.D., Director of Research and Planning in the Diocese of Rockford has presented evaluations of the CCH program for his diocese last year and again at this year’s Religious Research Association annual meetings. Cieslak has noted that the ads appeared to boost Mass attendance during and shortly after the campaign in Advent of 2009. But this bump in attendance has largely dissipated and two most recent headcounts indicate that Mass attendance has returned to pre-CCH levels.

There are other sources of data that can be tapped to measure potential CCH campaign effects. CARA conducted a national survey of adult self-identified Catholics on media use a few months ago. Results from this survey can be compared to a similar study conducted in 2005 (prior to any CCH campaign). Both surveys have a similar structure and content and both included a diocesan identifier for each respondent (representing their diocesan newspaper). We can use these two surveys to separate respondents by time (pre- and post-CCH) and by dioceses that have and have not had a CCH campaign.

As one can see in the figure below, in the 27 dioceses that have completed a CCH campaign or where the ads were pilot tested (as listed on the CCH website map), Mass attendance is up in 2011 compared to 2005. The percentage of self-identified adult Catholics saying they attend at least once a month has increased by 8 percentage points (38% in 2005 compared to 46% in 2011). This shift is beyond the margin of error (the 3 percentage point increase in weekly attendance is not statistically significant).

In isolation, this appears to be a confirmation of the CCH claims for increased activity in dioceses that have conducted campaigns. The problem? The same change occurred in dioceses that did not have CCH ads air. Here the monthly Mass attendance group increased by 9 percentage points (41% in 2005 compared to 50% in 2011).

It is certainly possible that the CCH campaigns may have “spilled-over” into other dioceses and that these data still confirm a measurable effect, but I am not sure this is likely. Many people see the CCH commercials on television in the dioceses where the ads are air. There does not appear to be a widespread number of views of CCH ads outside of these dioceses (i.e., where Mass attendance also increased). For example, the CCH YouTube channel has only about 1,400 subscribers and about 32,000 channel views since it was established in March 2008. More than 385,000 individual views of its videos have been made. These are all quite small numbers on a national scale. Most of the views are of the “Epic: 120” video (about 227,000 over more than 3 years... there are smaller numbers of views of this video on vimeo, godtube, dailymotion, metcafe, etc.). Forty-one of the 45 videos on the CCH YouTube channel have less than 5,000 views each (33 of them have less than 1,000 views each).

The CCH website also does not appear to draw huge numbers of visitors according to traffic estimates provided by commercial tracking sites. Quantcast estimates that the CCH website is visited by more than 10,800 U.S. web users per month. Alexa currently ranks the site at #529,337 in the U.S. (note that Quantcast ranks it higher) and provides the following typical audience snapshot: “Based on internet averages, catholicscomehome.org is visited more frequently by females who are in the age range 55-64, have no children, have no college education and browse this site from work.”

There are more data that can be compared, as reported by dioceses, in The Official Catholic Directory. The most recent 2011 edition presents the state of dioceses as of January 1, 2011—before Lent of this year. In the figures below I have compared dioceses where CCH ads aired (18 in total; again as listed on the CCH website) and those that did not up to Advent of last year. Sacramental activity rates (celebrations per 1,000 Catholics) have not increased in CCH dioceses from 2006 to 2011—including numbers of new Catholics entering the Church as infants, children, or adults.

Much like the Mass attendance comparison, there are also no significant differences between dioceses with CCH campaigns and those without them.

It is the case that dioceses that completed CCH campaigns report significantly more growth in their Catholic populations between 2006 and 2011 than those dioceses that did not have a campaign between 2006 and 2011 (nearly +1.2 million more Catholics in total). However, these CCH dioceses still had declines in numbers seeking baptisms (infant and adult) during this period. This indicates that the Catholic population growth identified here is largely not through infant baptisms or bringing non-Catholic adults into the faith. Also, on closer examination, nearly all of this growth is concentrated in three arch/dioceses: Atlanta, Phoenix, and Sacramento, which also experienced significant total population growth overall in the last decade (we’ve commented specifically on the Archdiocese of Atlanta in a previous post). It may be that these three arch/dioceses represent the best evidence for CCH bringing former Catholics back to the faith. It is equally likely that these new Catholics were largely gained through migration and immigration to Sunbelt areas of the U.S. In ten of 18 arch/dioceses with CCH campaigns, the rate of Catholic population growth from 2006 to 2011 is either slower than that for the overall population in the arch/diocese or actually negative.

I do not doubt that these are very well done ads. I do not doubt that they do a lot of good by creating a positive Catholic presence in the media. I'm sure there are thousands of anecdotes indicating positive effects that can or already have been profiled. CCH has a number of very positive and touching testimonials. I think the CCH effort deserves support, encouragement, and hope. Regardless of any data or statistics, Tom Peterson, CCH Founder and President, deserves a lot of credit and admiration for leaving a secular for-profit advertising business to set up a non-profit media ministry and then doing so much with this to create positive changes in the U.S. Church.

I just don’t think hundreds of thousands or more people “come back” or “come to” the Church and stay based on a 120-second advertisement. If this does occur in Advent 2011 it will represent one of the most extraordinarily successful media campaigns of all time and counter decades of social science and market research that has largely concluded that media spots and persuasion campaigns more often than not have just “minimal effects” on decisions and behavior (here is an example from political science). In the data I can examine, evidence of lasting effects are hard to find for some of the claims being made. More often than not, I think the Mass attendance measurements and comparisons made for CCH campaigns are primarily capturing the “return” of Christmas and Easter Catholics (i.e., actually those Catholics who typically attend on Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, and Easter) who aren't around in October or other times of the year.

I do think the CCH ads will energize Advent this year and likely produce at least a short-term bump in attendance other than what would normally be expected for the season. I do not doubt the ads brings in some “fallen away” Catholics and non-Catholics into parishes. But the data indicate the number of these individuals at this time is still too small to appear in national counts. The CCH materials often speak of “souls returned” to the Church by the commercials. For this to be the case the people returning to parishes will have to start showing up and staying in the national data soon. It has to be more than a “short visit home.”

One might ask, “What could be more effective than a commercial?” Father Barron’s Catholicism is a possibility that comes immediately to mind. It is on television, like CCH ads, and CARA studies indicate that TV is the among most used mediums for religious or spiritual content. This series also has the advantage of being the content rather than an advertisement and can reach a much greater depth than what could be achieved in a two-minute ad. But then again CCH’s ads will be in prime time on major networks where Catholicism is harder to find (PBS, EWTN etc.) on these widely-watched channels.

There is another possibility... I know new evangelization gets most of the attention these days but my hunch is that “old” evangelization would still work well. For Father Fichter it was a research method (i.e., the parish census) but I think it could be much more. What if parishes actually sent out volunteers to knock on doors? Introduce themselves. Let people know of the parish down the street (perhaps leaving a card with parish information and contacts). Offer help to those in need. Listen to the complaints of the disaffected. Ask, in person, for Catholics to come home by going to their homes. With enough volunteers it could be less costly than the old media and new media approaches and likely even more effective.

90 Degrees from Left and Right

2011-10-21T11:19:00.007-04:00

CARA has been in the news recently regarding results from a survey about American Catholics’ awareness and use of the U.S. Bishops’ Faithful Citizenship document (these CARA Catholic Poll questions were commissioned by Fordham's Center on Religion and Culture). Regrettably, these results indicate that few Catholics were aware of or used Faithful Citizenship in 2008. It’s a shame because it is an extraordinary comprehensive statement of the Church’s teachings and positions on social and political issues. Recently re-released with a new introduction this document will again vie for Catholics’ attention in 2012. Although it is by no means meant to be a voting guide or checklist I do think it provides for an interesting hypothetical test for Catholic voters (...if you have not read it yet, what are you waiting for?).

What if Faithful Citizenship was not a document from the U.S. Bishops? What if instead it was a new political party platform? Would you vote for a “third party” that stood for what Faithful Citizenship stands for rather than cast your vote for the Democrats or Republicans? Looking at survey data I don’t think many American Catholics would. Catholics tend to put their party preference ahead of their faith. They often choose to emphasize the issues their party is consistent with Church teachings on and minimize or ignore those that it is not.

In many European and Latin American countries with a Catholic presence, religious parties have had success running on a Church-inspired platform (e.g., from Rerum Novarum or Quadragesimo Anno)—sometimes in coalition with other similar-minded Protestant groups. These parties have often called themselves “Christian Democrats” (no affiliation with the Democratic Party in the U.S.)

Why doesn’t the U.S. have a Christian Democrat Party? I think it would be challenging for any party with a religious reference in its name and inspiration to be successful given the culture of separation of church and state in the U.S. It is also the case that a significant Catholic presence in the population required waves of immigration that occurred well after the formation of the U.S. party system. The biggest limiting factor may be our electoral system—the method used to translate votes into seats. We do this the “old school” way of one seat per district going to the majority/plurality vote winner which often leads to the creation of two large parties (with internal sub-divisions coming to coalition before elections). It is winner take all and very, very British. The U.K. currently gets effectively 2.5 parties out of it (Tories, Labour, and Liberal Dems).

Losers get little in America. This is not the case in most other democracies (including predominantly Catholic countries like Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and others) where the primary alternative to the first past the post (FPTP) electoral system used in the U.S. and U.K. is proportional representation (PR). In a PR system there are multi-member districts and parties win seats in close proportion to their vote percentages. So if a party wins 20% of the vote they may get about 20% of the seats in the legislature. Such systems typically have at least four and often more political parties. If the United States were to shift to PR elections we would no longer have the Democrats and Republicans of today. More than likely these parties would split up into a social conservative party, a libertarian party, a labor party, and a variety of other single issue, regional, and social group parties. We might have a more visible green party led by Al Gore and the Tea Party movement might become a “real” party (note that America’s founders did not intend to create a system where parties would form and feared the problems caused by factionalism).

The electoral system used for U.S. presidential elections also helps reinforce the two-party system. There is of course only one office and it is awarded to the majority/plurality winner of 51 population-weighted state/DC elections (i.e., Electoral College system). For presidential elections in many other countries a two-round system is used. In these, a national vote with many candidates from many different parties is held first—kind of like one big national simultaneous primary. The top two vote getting candidates then go on to campaign more and face a second and final vote perhaps weeks later which then goes to the majority candidate. As with PR, this broadens the field and gives more room for multiple parties to develop and thrive (it also ensures a majority selection, unlike the Electoral College where a candidate winning a plurality or even a minority of popular votes can be elected).

In the United States we have room for only two parties in the legislature because losing in single-member districts is so costly. You may win 49.9% of the vote but have nothing to show for it. The costs and challenges for a third or fourth party to seriously enter and compete in American elections are extremely formidable. The electoral systems used in the U.S. make it difficult for a Christian Democrat type of party to emerge—even when one in four voters are Catholic (78% of voters in 2010 were either Catholic or Protestant).

I don’t think we will ever see significant changes to the U.S. electoral systems. But it is a useful thought experiment. This idea came to me after reading one of Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s blogs earlier this year which placed the U.S. Bishops in the uncomfortable left-right, two-party system context:

“One side usually blesses us when we preach the virtue of fiscal responsibility, the civil rights of the unborn, the danger of government-tampering with the definition of marriage, and the principle of subsidiarity …

Yet this same side then often cringes when we defend workers, speak on behalf of the rights of the undocumented immigrant, and remind government of the moral imperative to protect the poor.

The other side enjoys quoting us when we extol universal health care, question the death penalty, demand that every budget and program be assessed on whether it will help or hurt those in need, encourage international aid, and promote the principle of solidarity …

… and then these same folks bristle when we defend the rights of parents in education, those of the baby in the womb and grandma on her death bed, insist that America is at her best when people of faith have a respected voice in the public square, defend traditional marriage, and remind government that it has no right to intrude in Church affairs, but does have the obligation to protect the rights of conscience.

So, we bishops get both blessed and blasted, a friend or foe of bloggers, pundits, and politicians, depending on what the issue is.”

As Archbishop Dolan describes (and as Faithful Citizenship reads), the U.S. Bishops and the Church are stuck between the two parties.

Some of the Church’s stances can be found in the Democrat’s platform and others in the Republican’s platform as shown in the conceptual figure below. But really instead of being “stuck” in the middle, the Faithful Citizenship position (which might be most consistent with a Christian Democrat approach) is more conceptually about 90 degrees from either the Democrats or Republicans.

Surely some would argue that the Christian Democrat block would or should distort to the right or the left (e.g., some issues have more “gravity” than others) and in practice in Europe and Latin America, Christian Democrats have been in positions that would most often be considered center-right or center-left. Political theory assumes that if such a movement emerged in the U.S. it would position itself according to the issue preferences in the political system that would maximize its votes while maintaining as much of its core principles as possible.

Regardless, it is clearly not easy to be a Catholic Republican or a Catholic Democrat. Perhaps it is even more difficult to be Catholic and Libertarian which seems nearly 180 degrees away. The platform of the Libertarian Party has little if anything in common with a document like Faithful Citizenship (although it does share some positions in common with the Democrats and with the Republicans). Yet Libertarians have more of a history as a noticeable third party in the United States. According to an August 2011 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, 16% of U.S. adults say they think of themselves as a Libertarian and in an October 2010 NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, 5% of registered voters said they would consider voting for a Libertarian candidate for Congress. Greens have their own little corner in the American party system but are arguably more single-issue focused and less likely to ever draw broad appeal. Oddly, a Christian Democrat Party has no institutional place but there certainly seems to be a potential spot for it to bloom. Perhaps it could be the .5 of an American 2.5 parties similar to what is generated in the U.K. If anything the prospect of such a party provides a useful measure of how important partisanship is relative to one’s Catholic faith.

Note, I am in no way implying that the U.S. Bishops or clergy should or would have any involvement in the development and life of such a party (tax laws limit such activities) and I am certainly not making any case for theocracy. However, as in other democracies, a party created and led by lay people could emerge and compete for votes inspired by the teachings of the Church and its relevant positions on issues important to the country. I am also aware the Christian Democrat parties in Europe and Latin America have had their corruption and scandals. No party is perfect and of course both the Democrats and Republicans have had their fair share of similar problems. Finally, note (as mentioned elsewhere) I am a man without a party or a vote by choice. As a political scientist (and prior to that as a news reporter) I have chosen to be entirely detached from the political system and aspire to be as objective as I can. I am not registered to vote, I don't have tea parties or occupy things, and I do not affiliate as a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Communist, Socialist, Anarchist, Fascist, Monarchist, etc. Nor am I a Christian Democrat (i.e., it's just not possible... yet!).

Pro-Life America: Is this a Spaghetti Western?

2011-09-27T13:00:00.005-04:00

During a recent Republican Party presidential candidate debate, Texas governor Rick Perry said, “In the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you’re involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is you will be executed.” At the time of this comment, 234 inmates had received this “ultimate justice” in the state under his leadership.

For Catholics, the Catechism provides the following direction: “the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor. If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means. … Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state had for effectively preventing crime … the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity ‘are very rare, if not practically non-existent’” (2267).

Never are the words “ultimate justice” (or justice in any form) used in connection with executing someone in current Catholic teachings. This is only something done when necessary in extraordinary situations (unlikely to exist at in the United States—including Texas). Why? It’s simple: “Every human life, from the moment of conception until death, is sacred” (Catechism, 2319).

But how many Catholics would side with Gov. Perry against the teachings of their Church? Surveys indicate most of them. Although Catholic approval of the death penalty has dropped from its peak height of 82% in 1985, still two-thirds of Catholics (65%) supported the policy in 2010.

But what of Catholicism and the pro-life movement? It is true that recent polls have indicated that a growing majority of Catholics consider themselves to be pro-life, however, many don’t seem to include the death penalty as an issue under this umbrella—even when it clearly is in the teachings of the Church (see Catechism, 2258-2330).

In 2010, about two-thirds of Catholics (65%) expressed opinions that were consistent with the Church’s opposition to abortion “on demand.” In addition to opposition to abortion for “any reason,” majorities of Catholics also oppose abortion in cases where the reason given is: not wanting any more children, low income or inability to afford more children, or the absence of marriage.

But Catholic attitudes regarding other reasons for abortion come with a few asterisks. Majorities—seven in ten or more—do think abortion should be possible when a woman’s health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy, when pregnancy is the result of rape, or when there is a strong chance of “serious defect in the baby.”

There are even more wrinkles. Add euthanasia into the mix and you begin to question whether there really are any U.S. Catholics consistent with the Church on life issues. Nearly seven in ten U.S. Catholics (68%) supported physician assisted suicide for patients with terminal illnesses in 2010. The Church of course teaches that euthanasia is “morally unacceptable” (Catechism, 2277).

How many Catholics are consistent on all three life issues? The structure of survey questions make it difficult to come to a precise estimate. However, as an example, just more than one in ten U.S. adult Catholics oppose: 1) abortion if there is a strong chance of a birth defect for the child, 2) capital punishment for convicted murders, and 3) euthanasia for terminally ill patients who request this. Most express at least one attitude that is in conflict with Church teachings.

These results emerge when the questions are asked independently. The percentage rises a bit when all three are presented in the same question. Less than one in five adult Catholics (19%) in a recent CARA survey “strongly agreed” that “All human life, from conception to natural death, is sacred. For this reason, the taking of life—whether through abortion, the death penalty, or assisted suicide—is wrong.”

The largest conflicted group among Catholic adults includes those who oppose abortion on demand yet support the death penalty (about four in ten U.S. adult Catholics during the last decade and specifically in 2010; only about one in ten support abortion on demand and oppose the death penalty). Here there is a split identity—in one instance mostly consistent with Rome and in another more in line with American culture and history. You might call it a “Spaghetti Western-style” pro-life identity—a uniquely American re-invention of Church teachings with a bit of the old west thrown in. In America, many appear to put matters of guilt and innocence above the overall sanctity of life and believe that they can be faithful and support the execution of a “bad guy.” These sentiments may be an important part of the explanation for how the U.S. is one of the few democratic capitalist nations with a Christian majority population that still allows for and uses the death penalty for civilians (e.g., the others are Botswana and Uganda).

Above photo courtesy of nicksarebi at Flickr Creative Commons.

Could Parishes Fill the Social Welfare Gap?

2011-09-21T11:39:00.004-04:00

During a recent Republican Party presidential candidate debate the following exchange took place as described in an ABC News story by Amy Bingham [You can also watch in the following YouTube video]:

CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer’s hypothetical question about whether an uninsured 30-year-old working man in coma should be treated prompted one of the most boisterous moments of audience participation in the CNN/Tea Party Express.

“What he should do is whatever he wants to do and assume responsibility for himself,” [Ron] Paul responded, adding, “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risk. This whole idea that you have to compare and take care of everybody…”

The audience erupted into cheers, cutting off the Congressman’s sentence.

After a pause, Blitzer followed up by asking “Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?” to which a small number of audience members shouted “Yeah!”

Paul, a doctor trained in obstetrics and gynecology, said when he got out of medical school in the 1960s “the churches took care of them.”

What could churches do today? What could Catholic parishes do more specifically? In the ongoing debates about the federal budget it is not unusual to see someone propose significant reductions or even an end to federal social welfare programs and that the country should instead rely on American churches and charities to fill the gap and help the needy and seniors.

For example, an article at American Vision (a self-described Christian non-profit organization that seeks to “restore America to its Biblical foundation—from Genesis to Revelation”) argues that, “Family, Church, and private charity can replace the Welfare State. ... [O]nly a small percentage of people truly do need wealth transfers in old age in order just to live a modest lifestyle, or especially just to survive. But once we reach that point, we are talking about an entirely different social circumstance: small cases can easily be met by private charity from families, businesses, and churches (as Paul commanded the churches to do by the way).”

In the Catholic blogosphere, similar arguments often include a reference to the principle of subsidiarity in an effort to engage the social teachings of the faith. The Catechism does note that, “The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which ‘a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.’ ... The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention” (1883, 1885).

However, this principle is limited to situations in which the local unit or community is able to address the problem(s) it is faced with (e.g., poverty, hunger, senior care). Could Catholic parishes be a significant part of a more local solution in replacing many of the functions of federal programs that provide assistance and health care to the poor and seniors? Is this a bit fairytale or a possible reality?

Data from a national survey of parishes for the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership project indicate that Catholic parishes in the United States have significant resources. For example, the average parish reports annual revenue of more than $695,000. Much of this, more than $477,000 per year on average, comes through weekly offertory collections from parishioners. However, the average parish has expenses of more than $626,000. This leaves little left over to deal with additional needs of the parish community that are not already being met in existing social assistance ministries and programs. Also, 30% of U.S. parishes indicate that their expenses exceed their revenue. Of those parishes reporting a deficit, the average size for the shortfall is 15.8% of revenue. Many of the parishes running deficits are in communities with some of the most dire economic conditions and therefore would have the most limited resources to respond to additional needs.

At the root of the issue is Catholic giving. If Catholic parishes are expected to take on significant new social assistance obligations (e.g., helping replace Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps) they would need significantly more in donations from parishioners than the current $9.57 given per registered household, per week (as estimated in the Emerging Models survey). Also, a strict adherence to the principle of subsidiarity would need some “elasticity” to allow for parishes within dioceses to cooperate so some of the parish collections from the wealthiest communities trickle over to parishes in communities facing higher levels of poverty and/or larger senior populations.

In 2010, the federal government spent $68.3 billion on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (i.e., “food stamps”) providing children and low-income people access to food. More than 18.6 million households received this benefit at some point in the year.

In this same year, there were more than 77 million self-identified Catholics in the United States. CARA surveys estimate that about 68% of these Catholics attend Mass at least once a year and 56% are registered with a parish. Taking the larger of these two numbers, if we assume that 68% of Catholic households give an average of $9.57 every week to their parish (e.g., in pews, by mail, or electronically) this would result in a total weekly offertory nationally of more than $194 million from more than 20.3 million households. Assume this happens every week and you'd have a total of $10.1 billion for the year. That is an impressive total. But we know a full 68 percent of Catholic households are not giving this amount to their parish offertory every week and what is given is used to cover parish expenses which totaled an estimated $11.1 billion last year nationally (…the gap in offertory and costs is most often covered by other parish income from investments, other fundraising, and subsidies).

But then again, many argue that a cut in spending and taxes would lead to a sudden increase in charitable giving (I don't know of any empirical evidence or historical examples that would lead one to estimate that this would be likely). Let's assume the extraordinary. What if Catholics increased their giving by a factor of five and the average household offertory contribution was $48 per week. Parishes would then have annual revenue of $50.6 billion leaving $39.5 billion “left over” after covering expenses to spend elsewhere. If all of this were used to address hunger in lieu of federal money, it could provide 58% of the 2010 budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program. That is impressive and parishes may be able to do more with this funding than a large national bureaucracy can. But that is just food stamps. There is nothing left over for parishes to assist in filling other gaps if Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid also disappeared (all of which have budget numbers that make food stamps look like small change). More so this scenario still depends on the average Catholic being willing and able to give their parish nearly $50 per week! It all seems rather utopian when one looks at the real data.

Catholic parishes and many other Catholic charities, hospitals, and ministries already do extraordinary work in helping the needy in the United States and abroad. I have no doubt they would find a way to do even more if government social welfare programs were cut. With more contributions from Catholics they would be even better able to do so. But could parishes fully replace even a single significant social welfare obligation of the federal government? No. Not even if Catholics start giving five times more in offertory collections.

Some would likely respond that “social welfare programs have failed” because “there are still poor people” so we need to try something different (e.g., “let the churches take care of them”). My response to this always begins by noting that the policy and practice of the U.S. government (more specifically the Federal Reserve) is to maintain, at a minimum, 3% to 4% unemployment (i.e., NAIRU – the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment as lower levels of unemployment are thought to create inflationary pressures). When such a policy exists you will always have millions unemployed and they will be poor (the OECD estimates that NAIRU is actually about 5% to 6% in the U.S.). Second, when health insurance is so closely tied to employment and people get seriously ill and can no longer work… they lose the things they need most (an income and their insurance). Poverty will exist as long as you have people unable to afford essential medical care. Third, there comes a point when we reach an age where it is challenging to earn an income for ourselves. To the degree that we do not take adequate care of our oldest citizens—providing at least a basic standard of living and healthcare while acknowledging they may be unable to contribute to this at their age, there will always be poverty in America.

Catholic institutions have done, are doing, and will continue to do an enormous amount with what they have to combat poverty. But it is a quaint myth that the churches, or Catholic parishes more specifically, could somehow do all that is needed in 21st Century America to provide assistance to the poor and elderly if government programs were significantly cut or disappeared.

New Catholics, New Media: More 'Bread and Circus' than Eucharist

2011-09-06T12:06:00.024-04:00

In a recent article in OSV, CARA researcher Melissa Cidade noted a surprising statistic: only 17% of adult Millennial Catholics (those born after 1981) are aware of liturgical changes that will occur at English language Masses on the first Sunday of Advent.

Millennials represent about one in five adult Catholics (19%) and the oldest members of this generation were in elementary school when the Internet began to gain widespread use in the United States. They are sometimes described as the digital or new media generation. Many in the Church assume that the way to connect with this emergent generation of Catholics is not through traditional print media, television, or radio but online—through blogs, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter accessed on smart phones, tablets, and e-readers. The hope is often stated that we may be able to use new media to get this generation “back into the real world pews” that are more often populated by their parents and grandparents.

The Catholic Press Association (CPA) of the United States and Canada recently commissioned CARA to conduct a national poll of adult Catholics to measure their media use. CARA partnered with Knowledge Networks to conduct the survey in May and June 2011. The survey was completed by 1,239 self-identified Catholics who were 18 years of age or older (resulting in a sampling margin of error of ±2.8 percentage points). The study also makes comparisons, where possible, to a parallel survey conducted by CARA in November and December 2005 for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Department of Communications regarding Catholic media use.

The findings (Download the Full Report) from these studies suggest that the emerging picture for new media use by Catholic adults overall—and especially among the Millennials is not as promising as many hope or assume. The problem is that putting something online is not the same as getting something on someone’s coffee table, front porch, or even in their mailbox. The Internet is a much more vast space and is navigated by search and social network. You can’t force people to consume your content. You likely won’t even get it on their computer screen or iPhone unless they are interested in it and looking for it.

First, the study shows that only a slight majority of Catholics (52%) pay “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of attention to national news (e.g., it is no surprise that many are unaware of the coming liturgical changes). In the new media age, they don’t have to. Thirty years ago many had only over-air television reception with three networks, and local radio and newspapers to choose from. The news was an inescapable part of the broadcast. With the development of cable television, satellite radio, the Internet, e-readers, etc. the content available to most has now expanded exponentially. In this new media environment, many have “narrowcasted” themselves into their interests—whatever these may be—and have largely tuned out the world that is not of their immediate interest. Entertainment has often trumped news, information, or other content when making these choices. Attention to news is lowest among young Catholics.

What about use of religious and spiritual content? Is Catholicism a part of adult Catholics’ narrowcasted media interests? The signs from the research suggest that too few Catholics are aware of and using religious new media resources for these to be considered a form of mass media. When it comes to Catholicism, more often than not, traditional media still have a much broader reach in a “new media” age.

While 22% of adult Millennial Catholics have read a print copy of their diocesan newspaper in the last three months (compared to 26% of all adult Catholics) only 4% of those in this generation have sought this out and read it online.

Despite what conventional wisdom or anecdote may suggest, Millennials do not overwhelmingly prefer reading content online compared to print. A third of these respondents indicate a preference for online content (32%), while another third prefers reading print (33%). Thirty-five percent do not have a preference either way.

The study also shows that awareness of national Catholic media has dropped a bit in recent years. The survey respondents were provided a list of 28 national Catholic newspapers and magazines and asked about their awareness and readership of each of these. A majority, 56%, were not aware of any of the publications listed. When presented with this same list in 2005, a minority (46% of respondents), were not aware of any of the publications listed.

Overall, adult Catholics are most aware of the following national Catholic publications (i.e., more than 8% or 4.5 million adult Catholics): Catholic Digest (32%), Maryknoll (12%), Liguorian (9%), and Our Sunday Visitor (8%). They were most likely to be aware of these same four publications in 2005. Adult Catholics are most likely to indicate reading the following national publications in print in the last three months: Catholic Digest (9%), Maryknoll (3%), Our Sunday Visitor (2%), and The Family Digest (2%).

Seventy percent of Millennials have no awareness of any of the major national print Catholic magazines and newspapers. Only one title, Catholic Digest, garners more than 7 percent awareness among Catholics under 30 and this publication has among the lowest web traffic of any title listed (Catholic Digest’s own tracking by Site Meter estimates globally a total of 423 visitors per day at the time of this post).

Of those Catholics who do read religious or spiritual content, most are doing so in print, not online. Catholics are also more likely to watch religious or spiritual video content on television than online and to listen to religious or spiritual audio over the radio or on a CD than in online podcasts.

Of the new media offerings, Millennials are generally no more likely (accounting for margin of error) than older Catholics to say they have done anything online or through the use of e-readers related to religion or spiritually. Few Catholics report doing anything with new media that is related to religion and spirituality at all. It’s not that Catholics aren’t online or using new media. They just aren’t using these to do things related to their faith in any great number.

The study shows some evidence of younger Catholics going to the Internet for information on parish, diocesan, or school websites (see page 57 of the report). Yet, there is no evidence of widespread use of Catholic blogs, news, or entertainment media.

Seventy-one percent of Millennials have a social network profile of some kind (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn). However, only 43% of those in this youngest generation has one of these profiles and simply indicates that they are Catholic on them (i.e., 60% of those with profiles self-identity as Catholic on the profile).

Many of those who are using new media related to their religion and spirituality do not fit the stereotypical image that might first come to mind. The study identifies the typical Catholic who uses Facebook for following religious and spiritual content is not a Millennial at all. It is a non-Hispanic white, divorced, Vatican II Generation (age 51 to 68), woman, living in a home in the Midwest, with an income between $85,000 and $99,999 a year.

More troublesome for the future of Catholic new media is evidence of an apparent drop in interest in anything Catholic online in recent years. We have commented on this elsewhere and provided a new permanent tracking feature at the bottom of this blog. While U.S. Google search volumes for anything regarding religion and spirituality have remained relatively steady since 2004, there is a noticeable drop in search volume for anything containing the word Catholic that departs from the religion and spirituality trend beginning in 2007 and worsening since.

The news on YouTube is not much better. For example, the Vatican has created a channel that regularly includes videos of Pope Benedict XVI. At this time more than 33,700 subscribe and more than 5.7 million views of videos on the channel have been made. Even with this reach the Vatican’s channel ranks #3,562 on YouTube in video’s viewed globally (the U.S. traffic rank for the vatican.va website is a bit higher at #2,361). The single most viewed video on the Vatican’s channel was posted in January 2009 and includes images of Vatican Communications with background music. It has more than 100,000 views and is 1.36 minutes in length.

What is ahead of the Vatican? If you are exceptionally daring and not easily offended, visit the YouTube rankings yourself and have a look. Search for any video including a “Catholic” reference and sort by “most views.” But be very cautious as there is a vast amount of offensive content (with many, many views) and you’ll find much of it to be designed for entertainment rather than anything informational, educational, or devotional. You might come across “The Patron Saint of YouTube,” by author John Green, a video that currently ranks a bit above the Vatican’s most viewed content at 138,000 views. The content is by no means reverent (he is not Catholic) and is likely to be objectionable to some. But it is an example of a guy in his home office with a camera talking about Catholic saints that can pull a larger crowd online than anything the Vatican puts on YouTube. The most subscribed channel on YouTube belongs to Ray William Johnson, a comedian who reviews “viral videos” with an adult-themed commentary (content is offensive). More than 4.5 million subscribe to his channel generating 1.2 billion views. That is 133 times larger than the Vatican channel’s subscription count with more than 210 times the number of videos viewed. Ray’s channel is representative of what the Church faces in its competition for online views of content. Right now it is no competition. [For more research about YouTube watch this excellent lecture, with no offensive content, by Professor Mike Wesch from Kansas State University.]

The current discourse surrounding Catholic new media is often very rosy and optimistic. The data just do not match this conversation—yet. Traditional media sources continue to be more often used and preferred by Catholics for religious and spiritual content.

The survey’s respondents were asked in an open-ended question, “How would you feel if print versions of Catholic newspapers and magazines—including your diocesan newspaper or magazine—ceased publication and moved their operations entirely online?” Only 18% of those responding to the question provided a response that included a comment that was positive about this hypothetical proposition. Most either expressed a negative opinion (39%) or a neutral or mixed opinion (39%). Four percent provided a comment that could not be coded as positive, negative, neutral, or mixed. Negative comments often referenced a personal preference for print versus online content or a concern that others—especially the elderly and poor—would be unable to gain access to an online-only publication. Positive and mixed comments often cited an online publication as being more environmentally friendly and cheaper for dioceses to produce.

Although Millennial Catholics are using new media frequently, they have yet to use it for religion and spirituality in any great number. Will they ever? How can this be achieved? Those are unanswered and difficult questions for now. But what can be concluded is that creating content for new media does not mean people will use it. The era of broadcasting is over. In a narrowcasted world, people have to be aware of and want to visit and use your content. Right now not enough Catholics seem interested or aware. Is it the content? Is it the crowded media environment? Is it a culture consumed by pop media and entertainment? Is it secularization? This study generated just as many questions as it did answers. New media will require new research and a new understanding.

You likely have questions and comments (let me guess)…

Q: Only 26% of adult Catholics regularly read a diocesan newspaper or magazine? That is disappointing.

A: Sure it would be great if those numbers were higher (note that 55% of weekly Mass attenders regularly read) but this number is also equivalent to 14.8 million adults, which represent about 5 percent of the total U.S. population. That means 1 in 20 Americans regularly read these publications. If diocesan newspapers and magazines were a television show they would be in the top 10 of the Nielsen Ratings in terms of people reached. Diocesan publications collectively also have a broader reach than the circulation of any magazine not printed by American Association of Retired Persons (The AARP Bulletin circulates at more than 23 million copies). Also, unlike secular newspapers and magazines that are experiencing rapid declines in circulation and readership, use of print copies of diocesan newspapers and magazines has been stable during the 2005 to 2011 period.

Q: I never see young people reading print publications. There is always a device in their hands accessing and posting things online.

A: But how often are they doing something related to their religion on those devices? The study indicates that this is not happening often or in great numbers. Also, when young people are looking for news and information about their religion or about what is going on in their diocese the study indicates this is still being done most often using traditional media.

Q: There never has been a major Catholic presence in American media. Why would you assume there should be one now?

A: You may recall that first on radio and then on television The Most Rev. Fulton Sheen was an unprecedented media superstar in his time (and still reaches many today in recordings). His television lectures, for which he won an Emmy, regularly competed against Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra on network television and often came out on top in ratings. At its height, his show was watched by more than 30 million people. Will there ever be someone like him again that can pull in that audience in the narrowcasted media environment today?

Q: What about EWTN?

A: In our 2005 study, 9% of adult Catholics indicated that they have watched EWTN at least once in the six months prior to being surveyed (this question was not replicated in the 2011 study). The programming this channel provides (over television, radio, and online) is a big part of the U.S. Catholic media presence and EWTN is obviously a very successful media organization. However, estimates for ratings are difficult to find and its content does not likely compete well with other network or cable programming on the national level. EWTN more often speaks to the number of homes (and countries) its programming can reach rather than specific numbers of viewers, listeners, or readers.

Q: What about catholic.org?

A: For years, if you searched for “Catholic” online this would be the first website in your results and one of the sites with the most traffic. Its continued presence in this position generates many visits and views and you can see the estimated analytics for the site from both Google, and Quantcast. These appear to track between 20,000 to 60,000 visitors per day from the United States to the website (Note: catholic.org's internal tracking registers a higher number of visitors). This is one of the most successful Catholic websites on the Internet. But the volume of traffic to the site is not yet in the “major” media presence range. However, given its placement in search results catholic.org is likely the most valuable Catholic-themed real estate in cyberspace other than vatican.va.

Q: What about _____________'s blog?

A: There certainly is no shortage of very successful Catholic blogs with significant followings (e.g., Whispers in the Loggia, OSV Daily Take, Fallible Blogma, USCCB Media Blog, The Gospel in the Digital Age, American Papist, In All Things, Googling God, PrayTell, U.S. Catholic Blog, The Deacon's Bench, Dating God, Catholic Culture, American Catholic... ). But these typically do not reach audiences to where they would be considered mass media. The survey results indicate that only 6% of Catholic adults (and 8% of Millennials) read a religious or spiritual blog in the three months prior to being surveyed. More so this 6% likely represents a great variety of different blogs.

Blame Popestock?

2011-08-26T13:18:00.004-04:00

Apparently Madrid will profit from World Youth Day. The Chamber of Commerce in Spain’s capital is estimating Catholic visitors brought in 160 million euros (or about $230 million) to the city. I’ve read this in Spanish newspapers but have yet to see it in the American press. Someone who read the Aug. 15 New York Times story “Catholic Clergy Protest Pope’s Visit, and Its Price Tag” (in the A section, page 5; by Suzanne Daley) will likely be surprised. The Rev. Eubilio Rodríguez is the featured source of the story (including his photo, arms crossed, looking angrily into the camera):

“How, he asks, can the Roman Catholic Church be getting ready for a lavish $72 million celebration in this city — some of it paid for with tax dollars — when Spain is in the midst of an austerity drive, the unemployment rate for young people is 40 percent and his parishioners are losing their homes to foreclosure every day?

‘It is scandalous, the price,’ he said. ‘It is shameful. It discredits the church.’”

The story did not include any quotes or references from an independent economist or analyst who might support (or deny) Father Rodríguez’s claims regarding this “lavish” event (he would presumably disregard this because the story informs us that he believes “costs are always fuzzy”). The story does note (in the eighth paragraph) that organizers clarified that the costs are pre-paid by those registered for WYD and corporate sponsors but then adds “critics are calling the claims ridiculous.” WYD was expected to impact the state only in terms of its costs for extra police and security (in part due to the threat of protests about the cost of the event), tax write-offs for corporate sponsors covering costs, and reductions in bus and train fares. At the same time, all of these costs were expected to be significantly outweighed by the financial gains brought by WYD visitors who were buying local goods and services, taking bus and train trips that otherwise would never have occurred.

The New York Times followed this story with another a few days later entitled, “Protests Greet Visiting Pope as Austerity Grips Spain” (in the A section, page 8; by Raphael Minder):

“Even before the pope’s arrival, the visit was overshadowed by violent clashes in Madrid late Wednesday between the police and protesters furious over its cost to Spain, which they contended was excessive at a time when many Spaniards are scraping by.”

Yet, the most important part of this story, and perhaps in all of the New York Times coverage of WYD, appears much later—in the very last sentence of the last paragraph, which reads:

“On Wednesday, José Blanco, spokesman for the government and one of Mr. Zapatero’s most senior ministers, added his support, saying that the government’s calculations showed that the event would yield a financial benefit for the Spanish economy.”

This does not seem to fit with the economic analysis of Father Rodríguez that was so prominently featured in the New York Times on August 15. How did this come to be buried in the last line of a follow-up story? I think I understand the discrepency better after reading the comments of Erik Wemple, of The Washington Post, who commented on Archbishop Charles Chaput’s criticism of the New York Times and other national media outlets. In Madrid, Chaput said:

“These are secular operations focused on making a profit. They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth.”

Wemple’s response:

“Check, check and check. Chaput’s description is something that editors at the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN and MSNBC would support, if not frame and post as a mission statement. News organizations should have little sympathy for any entity as powerful as the Catholic Church. And are you really going to pound the media for practicing aggressive skepticism?”

Wait, what? These news organizations have sympathy towards some institutions (and contempt for others) based on how “powerful” they are? First, news organizations should report the news… reality is what matters and anything else likely represents bias. Second, did he say powerful? As a survey researcher I don’t often see the “power” of the Church in the attitudes or behaviors of American Catholics. If the bishops have some great command over the U.S. Catholic masses (or even its most prominent Catholic politicians) the evidence is weak. Finally, if the New York Times was practicing “aggressive skepticism,” the claims made by Father Rodríguez could have used a heavy dose of this medicine.

Another story featuring criticism of the Church by priests appeared on July 22 in the Times entitled, “In 3 Countries, Challenging the Vatican on Female Priests” (in the A section, page 1; by Laurie Goodstein). At first I thought this might be another of the infamous New York Times “trend” stories (more on this at Slate) where a reporter connects relatively obscure and separate events creating a narrative of the new realities facing us that we just haven’t noticed yet (the New York Times does not own a monopoly on this type of story but it is an industry leader. These are the types of stories that make statisticians cry). Examples include the emerging “realities” that more parents are sending their children to summer camp on private airplanes, growing numbers are also building playhouses for $100,000s, book clubs and Tupperware parties are being replaced by pole dancing, having a gut is now cool, women are all starting to dress like Elaine from Seinfeld, more and more single men love cats, alleged criminals are often Yankee fans, Christians are turning to mixed martial arts, and girls tournament sports are helping the economy.

Wait let me read that last one again. If you get hundreds of young people in one location they actually help the economy? I wonder what would happen if you had more than a million young visitors in one city?... Back to the July story… It turns out the reporter wasn’t connecting any dots at all. It wasn’t a New York Times trend story. It was heavily based on dots already connected in a press release. And then it hit me. Sympathies. Searching the New York Times database one finds prominent quotes (in lede paragraphs) from a small set of Church critics that get repeated coverage. I am by no means arguing that these voices do not deserve to be in the New York Times (I was once a reporter myself and deplore any notion of censorship or quieting dissent in the press), but it is unusual how these critics (regardless of the factual nature of their claims) seem to now be driving the coverage of the New York Times and in some cases almost writing its headlines. Criticism is needed when it has a basis in fact. Some of the criticism of the Church appearing in the New York Times appears to have a tenuous relationship with reality (e.g. Father Rodríguez) and good reporters should weed this out by checking data, conferring with experts, and simply applying some common sense. And by no means am I arguing Church leaders should be driving the coverage of the New York Times either! What should be? Facts, reality...

I believe part of the heavy reliance on critics is related to the New York Times devotion to the 1990s journalism school ethos of “how to be fair and unbiased.” Reality doesn’t matter (from a postmodern point of view it probably doesn’t even exist) and as long as you get quotes from both sides (all stories have two sides; bury the quote from the point of view you personally like less and put the one you favor in the headline and lede) you are reporting in a balanced manner.

I fully understand those who are critical of the Church for the sex abuse crisis and how it handled these crimes. Count me as a critic on this issue as well and I fully expect this topic will continue to be in the news for years where critics voices should be prominent. But I understand that Catholicism is much more than this crisis. There are more than 1 billion Catholics in this world and to them their faith is many things. Many good things and some bad. Catholics are painfully aware of the bad and are ashamed and angered by news of clergy sex abuse. But most are not giving up on their Church, their faith. More than 1 million young Catholics in Madrid made that statement last week as clearly as ever. That was news but it just didn’t make it in the headlines (or even the last paragraph!), which instead were all about WYD “price tags.” Will there be headlines now about the profits? Does someone need to send a press release on this?

The New York Times has claimed that it has no bias against the Catholic Church (1, 2). But I believe recent stories have made transparent some contempt for the Church. When I read about other religious faiths in the New York Times I don’t see the coverage of those institutions to be driven by their critics. I don’t see the adversarial point vs. counter-point approach that appears in almost any story the New York Times does about Catholicism. In the past, even when I found fault with their reporting, I have still defended the New York Times as mostly just using the healthy journalistic skepticism that Wemple highlights (which is good when applied to all sources). Yet, given the New York Times’ coverage of WYD and other recent stories, I am beginning to think Archbishop Chaput made some valid points in his comments.

Above photo courtesy of adKinn at Flickr Creative Commons.

Research Notes...

2011-08-24T11:12:00.003-04:00

Numbers of New Catholics Continue to Fall

In a previous post, we noted that infant baptisms have been declining year-to-year (as reported in The Official Catholic Directory; where the publication year represents totals for the year prior, e.g., the 2011 edition includes totals for 2010). We've also noted these are generally moving in step with the overall fertility rate, which has also been falling (more so since the recession in 2008). In each of the past three years the number of people entering the faith (of any age) has dropped below 1 million. Since 1947, during only one other period, from 1973 to 1979, did the annual number of new U.S. Catholics number less than 1 million.

Generally, the numbers entering the Catholic Church are nearly sufficient to keep up with the number of Catholics who pass away each year (of course each year some leave the faith, some come back after already having left, and additions occur from immigration of Catholics from other countries as well). However, this may not always be the case if current trends continue. Not only are infant baptisms in decline so are entries into the faith among children, teens, and adults. These had been steadily increasing from 1997 to 2000 and reached a historic peak of 172,581 in 2000. Then something happened...

In just one year, from 2000 to 2001, the number of these non-infant entries into the Church fell by more than 20,000 (down 12.6%). This drop predates the emergence of news of clergy sex abuse cases. In fact the number of entries into the Church increased from 2001 to 2002 when these stories emerged in the media. From 2002 the number of new non-infant entries stabilized until 2006 and 2007 where another steep decline occured. There were more than 28,000 fewer non-infant entries into the Church in 2007 than in 2005 (down 19.2%). Since then, the decline has flattened out a bit but still continues through to the numbers for 2010.

I am not sure how to explain the trends in the figures above in terms of causal events. But the shifts are significant and beyond random fluctuations (the average year-to-year change in non-infant entries since 1944 has been 1.0%).

Catholic and Protestant Parish Ministry Wages are Comparable

A companion piece to the CARA research released in the Emerging Models project's The Changing Face of U.S. Catholic Parishes is the National Association of Church Personnel Administrators report, Pay & Benefits Survey of Catholic Parishes, 2011 Edition using the same Emerging Models survey data. One of many interesting findings is how similar wages and salaries are for Catholic parish ministers and those working in similar capacities in Protestant churches in the United States.

The Protestant data used by NACPA are from Protestant: 2010 Church Staff Compensation Survey (Christianity Today International). The full NACPA report includes Catholic ministry pay data for 60 different parish ministry positions by region, parish budget, size of parish offertory, parish staff size, number of registered families at parishes, and by parish Mass attendance. The report can be purchased from the NACPA website.

Online Interest in All Things Catholic

Recently we wrote a post on an indicator of possible declining interest in Catholicism online. We now provide at the bottom of this blog, as well as on CARA's Frequently Requested Statistics, active tracking of U.S. Google search volumes for anything including the word Catholic. These can be compared to search volumes for religious and spiritual content in general. The figure automatically updates with new data. To see an expanded report just follow the "View full report in Google Insights for Search" link.

Catholicism in Spain

2011-08-17T16:59:00.002-04:00

All eyes are on Madrid with World Youth Day underway. Spain is often lumped in with other European countries when people talk of the secularization and decline of Catholicism on the continent. Yet, each country really has its own story and Spain, much like Italy and Ireland, has not seen much of a loss in terms of identity and affiliation in the aggregate compared to other areas of Europe. However, it has seen a steeper drop in Mass attendance than both Italy and Ireland.

The good news? There are likely more Catholics in Spain today than ever. The figure below is based on census estimates and respondents’ self-identification of their religion and church attendance from the World Values Survey. It applies only to the adult population (age 18 and older). In 1981, there were an estimated 25.8 million Catholic adults in Spain and this had grown to 29.8 million in 2007 (most recent data available).

However, during this same span of time (the bad news) the percentage of all adults self-identifying as Catholic and reporting that they attend Mass at least once a week, every week dropped from 41% to 15% (11.6 million to 5.7 million adults attending every week). In any given week 6.7 million adult Catholics are estimated to attend Mass at least once. This is equivalent to about 300 attenders per parish.

Growth of the adult Catholic population has not kept up with the overall adult population growth in Spain (+15.3% for Catholics compared to +29.7% for the population overall). However, this is not primarily because many people have stopped raising their children Catholic nor is it because some huge number of adults have left the faith. More important has been the crash in fertility in Spain (people having too few children to raise Catholic or not). Immigration has been essential for Spain to maintain its population growth. Whereas in the United States this has often led to Catholic population growth, this does not often occur in many areas of Europe. Instead, immigration there is often coming from non-Catholic countries. As the numbers of immigrants have grown in Spain, the Catholic population has become a smaller component of the overall population.

In 1964, the Spanish fertility rate was well above replacement at 3.01 (the replacement rate is an average of 2.1 births per woman—enough to replace both parents). This reached a low of just 1.15 in the mid-1990s before increasing slightly to 1.4 now. This increase is in part a result of a larger population of immigrants from developing countries who tend to have higher fertility rates. For most of the post-World War II era Spain did not have a significant inflow of immigration. That all changed in the mid-1990s with the creation of the European Union and the movement of economic activity to areas of Europe with lower labor costs. There were only about 500,000 foreign-born residents of Spain in the mid-1990s. This has increased to 5.7 million in more recent estimates. The largest groups of immigrants are from Morocco, Romania, and the United Kingdom. There are also segments of this immigration that likely bolster Spain's Catholic numbers coming from Ecuador, Colombia, and Bolivia.

The fastest growing religious group in Spain is the Nones—those lacking any religious affiliation (although they may still have religious or spiritual beliefs). Among adults, this group has expanded by 174% since 1981 and in 2007 represented more than 7 million adults residing in the country. That means adult Nones are similar in number to all adult Catholics attending Mass in an average week.

The Vatican estimates that there are 42.5 million Catholics in Spain of all ages as of 2009 (source: Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae, 2009). This would represent 92.5% of the total population. The World Values Survey estimated a slightly lower Catholic affiliation percentage of 82.3% among adults in 2007. According to Vatican estimates, there are an estimated 1,873 Catholics in Spain for each parish—significantly lower than the 3,834 Catholics per parish estimated for the United States. Although Spain is only 1/19th the size of the U.S., it has 4,520 more parishes.

Above photo courtesy of Catholic Westminster at Flickr Creative Commons.

Who Will Be Behind (Parish) Door Number One?

2011-08-10T18:55:00.011-04:00

Each year, CARA conducts a nationwide census of Catholic ministry formation programs, from seminaries to colleges to diocesan-run certificate programs. The 2011 data are in. This year, college seminary enrollments are up 1% and theologate enrollments are up 4%. Looking over the short-term trend it is apparent that college seminary enrollments are stable and the theologate enrollments have been on a slight upswing for the past five years or so. Diaconate formation programs have also experienced growth in recent years (for more see CARA's statistical summary).

But, there is another group in formation across the country—where an entirely different scale and pattern is emerging. These are the individuals who are not seeking to be ordained but are still in formation for Catholic parish ministry. These are the Church’s lay ecclesial ministers, a group that is difficult to count because they are difficult to define. Some of those in lay ministry formation programs are simply there for adult faith formation or may be studying theology and have no intention to become a lay ecclesial minister. Others are preparing for a vocation and a career.

What is a lay ecclesial minister? In Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops describes this being characterized by:

Authorization of the hierarchy to serve publicly in the local church
Leadership in a particular area of ministry
Close mutual collaboration with the pastoral ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons
Preparation and formation appropriate to the level of responsibilities assigned to them

The phrase “lay ecclesial minister” is intended to be a generic term, not a specific role description or title. Co-Workers states that the ministry is lay “because it is service done by lay persons [including vowed religious]. The Sacramental basis is the Sacraments of Initiation, not the Sacrament of Ordination.” It is ecclesial “because it has a place within the community of the Church, whose communion and mission it serves, and because it is submitted to the discernment, authorization, and supervision of the hierarchy.” It is ministry “because it is a participation in the threefold ministry of Christ who is priest, prophet and king.”

The longest section of Co-Workers is on formation for lay ecclesial ministry. It begins by noting that the Church has always required proper preparation of those who exercise a ministry, citing Canon 231, which states that “lay persons who devote themselves permanently or temporarily to some special service of the Church are obliged to acquire the appropriate formation which is required to fulfill their function properly.”

In CARA’s work with the Emerging Models project, as well as other earlier studies on the topic of lay ecclesial ministry, a definition has been operationalized for research purposes that encompasses lay persons who are in paid parish ministry for at least 20 hours per week (CARA provides separate estimates including those who volunteer in these capacities). Currently the number of lay ecclesial ministers in the United States totals about 38,000 or about two per parish (up from 29,000 in 1997, representing a 31% increase). Fourteen percent of these individuals are vowed religious and 86% are other lay persons. Overall, 80% are female and 20% male. Four in ten are under the age of 50 (for more see: The Changing Face of U.S. Catholic Parishes).

Growing numbers of lay ecclesial ministers in parishes must mean that there are more and more lay people studying and readying themselves to live out these vocations... Surprisingly no.

Two facts should jump off the graph below. The first is the sheer numbers in lay ecclesial ministry formation programs. Even at its lowest point, it is well above the combined enrollments in seminary and diaconate formation programs. Second, after peaking in the early 2000s, and dropping sharply until more recently stabilizing, lay ecclesial ministry formation enrollments are more volatile than enrollments in seminary and diaconate formation programs.

Many theories have been proposed for the drop in the numbers: perceptions of a surplus of lay ecclesial ministers, effects of the sex abuse scandal, fewer lay people being entrusted with the pastoral care of parishes where a priest is unavailable (i.e., Cannon 517.2; totaling 411 U.S. parishes in 2011 down from a peak of 566 in 2004), volatility in the economy, closings of parishes and schools, or expected salaries making it difficult to budget the costs of obtaining the education and formation required.

But, there also appears to be another important factor related to the number of lay ecclesial ministers enrolled in formation programs—the number of available programs themselves.

When the number of programs drops, the number of students drops (Pearson's R=.864; the initial drop in programs precedes the drop in enrollments). These programs don’t usually consolidate; they are closed outright or offered only on an “as needed” basis. To some extent, if you cut the program they will leave and don't appear to look for or readily find other options…

If you are a regular reader of this blog you already know that the U.S. Catholic population is growing and the number of priests is expected to continue to decline (as the Mass attendance rate is stable—representing annually increasing numbers of worshipers along with Catholic population growth). Parishes are closing resulting in existing parishes, on average, getting bigger and having larger budgets and staffs. Yet, if fewer and fewer are in formation to replace today's lay parish leaders, should we expect a coming shortage of lay ecclesial ministers? Will there always be enough people behind the parish door to greet you, minister to you, educate you, help you? Maybe not if the current trends continue...

For more on formation statistics check out the 2011 CARA Catholic Ministry Formation Directory—available for the first time this year as an online, searchable database as well as in the traditional printed format.

-CARA researchers Melissa Cidade, Mary Gautier, and Mark Gray contributed to this post.

The Marriage Question: In the Church or not?

2011-08-01T16:35:00.011-04:00

The post below is authored by and based on the research of Adriana Garcia. She interned at CARA this summer—on loan from the University of Notre Dame. She is heading back there to begin her senior year (followed by graduate school and a Ph.D. ...). Adriana is specifically interested in something that has been featured in recent CARA articles in OSV and The Official Catholic Directory, 2011—the decision to marry in the Church. Her analysis below uses logistic regression. This method of analysis allows one to predict which of two categories a person is likely to be in (the dichotomous dependent variable) given a variety of factors and information about a person (independent variables). In this case we are looking at the decision to marry in the Church or not. She uses CARA’s recent survey on the sacrament of marriage for the analysis. In the logistic regression tables below she reports coefficients that measure the change in odds associated with decisions to marry in the Church based on each independent variable listed in the table. Where this coefficient is 1.0 or greater it means the variable is associated with the respondent being more likely to marry in the Church. When it is less than 1.0 it means that the variable is associated with the respondent being less likely to marry in the Church.

Church weddings. Not so much seashells, confetti or bridezillas, but more of a traditional event; a priest is present, scripture is read, and the ceremony is held in the ‘house of God.’ In other words, one that retains the sacramental side of things.

Recently, the topic of marriage has taken over news headlines. From print to televised media, journalists and activists have discussed and advocated their own views and definitions of marriage. In all this conversation though, what’s going on with Catholics? Of course, the Catholic Church continues to reiterate Church teaching and uphold the sanctity of such a sacrament, but what factors lead Catholics to take this sacred route? What leads Catholics to choose the sanctified marital union over a quick trip to Vegas or the Poconos?

In a 2007 poll conducted by CARA for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), 1,008 U.S. adults self-identifying as Catholic were asked an array of questions on the issue of marriage (margin of sampling error of ±3.1 percentage points). The survey not only tested general knowledge on Catholic teaching but also asked respondents about their own views on marriage and divorce.

In this post, an analysis is presented that aimed to gain a greater grasp on what influences Catholics to marry within the Church. To accomplish this, we divide the sample by marital status. We first look at Catholics who have never married but who indicate it is at least a little likely that they will do so in the future. The analysis isolates what makes people in this group more or less likely to say that it would be important (“somewhat” or “very”) to them to be married in the Church in the future. Second, we focus on Catholics who have married and on whether they chose to be married in the Church (excluding marriages following divorce without an annulment). So for one group we are looking at future intentions and the other whether they actually chose to marry in the Church (the obvious limitations of causality among respondents in the latter group are noted below). With the aid of logistic regression, important factors are isolated as being more or less relevant to the decision to marry in the Church.

First, it is important to note that the two groups include people at two stages of life. The never married Catholics are disproportionately young adults and those who have been married tend to be older. While the never-married generally carry an optimistic and idealistic outlook on their future marriage choices, those who have married appear to have been more pragmatic in their choice to marry in the Church.

The results for never-married Catholics are presented in the table below (statistically significant results are noted where *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001). A narrative description of these findings follows.

Controlling for all factors in the never-married models, those of the Millennial Generation (born after 1981), who attend Mass at least once a month, with married parents, and with more traditional views of marriage are among the most likely to say it is important to them to be married in the Church. Attendance at college or attainment of a degree are factors that make it less likely a never-married Catholic will say it is important for them to marry in the Church. There are no statistically significant effects of Catholic schooling at any level for this group (yet this does not preclude that these may emerge as influences later in life).

Never-married Catholics who 1) say they are familiar with Church teachings on marriage, 2) that their Catholic faith informs their views of marriage, 3) who also agree marriage is a calling from God, and 4) that it is important for spouses to share the same faith are among the most likely to say it is important to them to marry in the Church.

As shown in the table above, among Catholics who have married at some point in their life, Hispanics are significantly less likely than non-Hispanic white Catholics to indicate that they married in Church. Sociologist R.S. Oropesa, in his article “Normative Beliefs about Marriage and Cohabitation” in the Journal of Marriage and Family writes, “consensual unions (not marriage)…reflects…the inability to pay for religious marriage ceremonies.” In other words, Church marriages in Latin America are thought of as a luxury item, an event that only occurs if one can pay for it. Some Hispanics have married before immigrating to the United States and among native-born Hispanics in the United States these cultural norms of marriage are in some cases still intact, and may be resulting in more civil unions and cohabitation.

In regards to education, Catholics who have married in the Church are less likely to have attended Catholic primary schools than Catholics who chose to marry outside the Church. In contrast, Catholics who have married in the Church are five times more likely to have attended Catholic universities and colleges than their counterparts who decided to marry outside the Church. In fact, attendance at a Catholic college or university is the single most powerful correlate of having married in the Catholic Church (this positive association for Catholic college attendance and something faith-related is one among many found in CARA surveys).

Whereas a college education—at a Catholic or non-Catholic institution—is associated with lower levels of importance assigned to marrying in the Church among never-married Catholics, having a college degree is positively associated with marrying in the Church among those who have already faced this decision.

Mass attendance is important as well with those attending more frequently now, having also been more likely in the past to marry in the Church. This correlation includes those who attend at least once a month. As in the never-married results, a slightly weaker coefficient among weekly attenders specifically is likely related to the addition of attitudinal variables in the third model. Among married Catholics, those who say their Catholic faith informs their view of marriage are much more likely than those not responding as such to have married in the Church.

The results for Catholics who have already married carry less weight than those who have never married. Some of the variables in the married models include observations of attitudes and behavior that can be quite distant from the decision to marry and cannot possibly be causally related to this decision due to time order. Instead, many results for this group may instead be measuring the effects of Catholic marriage. Two important exceptions to this issue are the results related to Hispanic self-identity and the associations related to attendance at Catholic educational institutions (as attendance likely precedes marriage decisions).

The results for the never-married Catholics are methodologically straightforward and more important for the future of the Church. With the numbers of marriages in the Church declining in recent years it is a hopeful sign that the youngest adult Catholics—the Millennials—are more likely than Post-Vatican II Catholics (born 1961 to 1981) or even older Catholics who never married (but who still say their is some likelihood that they will) to feel marriage in the Church is important to them. It is also heartening that never-married Catholics who are familiar with Church teachings and who say these inform their view of marriage feel it is important for them to marry in the Church. It may follow that making young Catholics more fully aware of these teachings and more committed to them could be a key factor in reversing the recent declines in marriage in the Church.

Above photos courtesy of Price|Photography, 50 Prime, Nigel Howe, zoonabar at Flickr Creative Commons.

Focus on Philly

2011-07-19T18:28:00.005-04:00

Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. has been appointed to succeed Cardinal Justin Rigali of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Archbishop Chaput will be coming to an Archdiocese that has a wealth of data on the Catholic population within its borders. Dr. Robert J. Miller, Director of the Archdiocesan Office for Research and Planning, is simply one of the best data people working in service to the Church today. There are few other arch/dioceses that do such a thorough job collecting data for planning and making this available to the community (from which we draw on to show the trends below).

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, like many other northeastern arch/dioceses that include a large urban area, has experienced declines in the number of registered Catholics and in Mass attendance in recent years. Yet the changes in Philadelphia have been modest in the short-term. In the last five years, the number of registered Catholics has declined by 3.7% with 44,000 fewer registered in 2010 than in 2006. This does not necessarily mean there are fewer Catholics in the Archdiocese (e.g., the Archdiocese reports a total of 1,316,220 Catholics—registered and non-registered—in the 2011 Official Catholic Directory). In CARA’s national surveys we have seen a drop in recent years in the percentage of Catholics choosing to register with a parish. Many of the 'unregistered' still self-identify as Catholic and have some activity in parish life.

The rate of Mass attendance at Saturday Vigil and Sunday Masses in the Archdiocese has dropped by -2.1 percentage points from 2006 to 2010, with 36,207 fewer attenders in 2010 than in 2006.

Trends in sacramental and other devotional activity in the Archdiocese mirrors national patterns with slight drops in the number of baptisms, marriages, and funerals celebrated in the Church. In 2006, there were 10.7 baptisms of minors, 3.7 marriages in the Church, and 9.6 funerals celebrated for every 1,000 registered Catholics in the Archdiocese. By comparison, in 2010, there were 9.4 baptisms of minors, 3.3 marriages in the Church, and 9.2 funerals celebrated per 1,000 registered Catholics.

One of the biggest opportunities for Archbishop Chaput is in strengthening ties between Hispanics in the Archdiocese and the Church. Even as the number of registered Catholics has dropped, according to U.S. Census data 72% of overall population growth (Catholic and non-Catholic) in the Archdiocese in the last decade has been among Hispanics. CARA surveys indicate that Hispanic Catholics are generally less likely than other Catholics to register with their parish and most Hispanics in the United States self-identify as Catholic.

Archbishop Chaput will be moving from the 38th largest arch/diocese (as measured by Catholic population) to the ninth largest. Yet these two archdioceses are coming closer in the population rankings over time. In the last decade, the Catholic population of the Archdiocese of Denver grew by 45 percent, while it declined by 8 percent in Philadelphia.

The number of individuals in formation for the clergy or religious life in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been relatively stable in recent years. Currently there are more than 200 people in formation. The largest numbers are men preparing to be priests (97) and men preparing to be permanent deacons (70).

There are a few other important aspects of the Catholic faith that have also shown growth in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in the last five years, including the number of child baptisms from ages 1 to 6 (+1%), students enrolled in Catholic high schools (+15%), the number of adult Catechumens (+9%), and the number of people participating in Eucharistic Adoration (+18% since 2007).

Above photo courtesy of Steve and Sara at Flickr Creative Commons.

Which is more difficult, closing a parish or establishing a new one?

2011-07-18T13:00:00.016-04:00

Today, the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership project will be releasing the first report from their ongoing landmark study of parish life in the United States entitled, The Changing Face of U.S. Catholic Parishes. A significant piece of the first findings are on the issue of the growing scope of parish life. As the Church has closed parishes in the last decade, those that now remain, on average, include more individuals and are celebrating more Masses. These changes may begin to take a toll in the future as the study, conducted by CARA, also finds that larger U.S. parishes tend to have lower rates of attendance, lower levels of sacramental activity per household, and less giving per registered household than what is reported in smaller parishes. There appears to be a size limit at which the parish community begins to become less active and less giving.

Much of the recent focus in the news on these topics has been on parish closings. For example, it has been reported that Bishop Richard Lennon has requested the Vatican to evaluate recent decisions to close parishes in the Diocese of Cleveland. Yet it has not been uncommon for dioceses in the Midwest and Northeast to close parishes in recent years (some of these are typically maintained as worship sites). Many parishes in these areas were established 70 to 130 years ago to meet the needs of new and growing immigrant Catholic populations (often speaking different languages) in urban centers. In the post-World War II era, Catholics (along with the population in general) shifted to the suburbs and South and West into the growing Sun Belt economy. As emotionally difficult as it must be to close some of these parishes, it is also sometimes necessary to do so given the maintenance costs for these aging physical plants in light of smaller numbers of parishioners and priests often being in shorter supply than they were decades ago (note I have no knowledge of the specific decisions or data in Cleveland so I cannot say whether those closings generally fit the broader patterns).

An equally challenging question for the Church is how will it address the needs for all the Catholics in areas where there really never was a “local” neighborhood parish? As we have shown in a previous post, there are not a lot of dioceses building new parishes in areas where the Catholic population moved and is growing strongly. I understand there are challenges to building a new parish including capital campaigns, planning commissions, architects, and construction companies to deal with. This was all I imagine much easier to do in the 19th century. But a parish building boom will likely be needed in the U.S. Sun Belt in the 21st century.

The migration trends I note above are long-term but just look at the short-term effects below of the recession on mobility for two counties. The top image is for those leaving (red) and coming to (black) the county which includes the city of Cleveland in 2008 (the source is IRS data and the image is generated from Forbes). The bottom image shows the same for the county including the city of Atlanta. As one can see some of Cleveland’s population loss has been Atlanta’s gain (note we do not know the religion of any of the individuals in the IRS data).

In 2001, the Archdiocese of Atlanta had more than 320,000 Catholics, 131 active diocesan priests, and 77 parishes (note in 1991, the Archdiocese had 176,000 Catholics and 65 parishes). Moving a decade ahead, the diocese now has 900,000 Catholics, 141 active diocesan priests, and 87 parishes. Thus, the number of Catholics increased by 181% in the last decade but the number priests only increased by 8% and the number of parishes by 13%. This means the number of Catholics per parish in the Archdiocese has grown from 4,156 in 2001 to 10,345 in 2011. Ten new parishes have been added to accommodate 580,000 additional Catholics. I certainly do not mean to sound critical in any way of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. In fact this Archdiocese is one of the few that has added significant numbers of parishes in recent years. Thus, even where the needs are recognized and growth is occurring, the arch/dioceses doing the most to focus on new construction still tend to be a bit behind the pace of the rapidly changing distribution of the Catholic population in the United States.

The Church should take great care in dealing with the future of parishes in communities with diminishing Catholic populations. The decision to close a parish must always be very difficult. Yet, it may also be time to ask, with great care as well, when and how do we open new parishes where they are needed? After moving, will Catholics always have a new Catholic home to “come home” to?

An Italian American Mystery

2011-07-08T17:15:00.000-04:00

In previous posts we have looked at shifts in the racial and ethnic identities of American Catholics as well as changing identifications with national ancestry groups. Within these changes is a mystery that many may not have noticed. The percentage of adult Catholics claiming Italian ancestry has fallen off a bit in recent decades (from 18% in the 1970s to 13% in the 2000s). However, the percentage of all American adults claiming Italian ancestry has been relatively stable at about 5% to 6% from 1972 to 2010. Reading between the lines, the proportion of Italian Americans who self-identify their religion as Catholic must be falling. As the graph below shows, it is.

This is not an easy group to study, given its overall size in the total population. Generally, samples for Italian Americans are small in the General Social Survey (GSS). However, the GSS provides repetitive independent samples that can be tracked over time. Even when accounting for margins of sampling error (the bars extending out from each data point on the graph) a clear pattern of decline is evident.

If one takes the point estimates literally (ignoring margin of error for a moment), Catholic affiliation among Italian American adults has fallen from 89% in 1972 to 56% in 2010 (-33 percentage points). If you’re an optimist you can assume the higher margin of error estimates are more accurate and if you’re a pessimist go with the lows. Either way, the decline in percentage points is essentially the same. Note as this drop has occurred the overall Catholic affiliation percentage for U.S. adults has remained unchanged at 25%—where it has been for decades.

Is there anything similar happening among Italians in the “home country?” No. Although the Mass attendance of Catholics in Italy has declined in recent decades, affiliation among Italians has remained in the high 80% to low 90% level (i.e., World Values Survey estimates).

It is clear that the changes in the U.S. are gradual. There is no mass exodus moment in the trend. These types of trends often speak to generational replacement. This would entail older Italian Americans who self-identify as Catholic passing away and being replaced in the adult population by younger Italian Americans who do not identify as Catholic. The socialization of Catholicism among the Italian American population appears to be breaking down.

It does not appear to primarily be an issue of children of Italian American Catholics being raised Catholic and leaving the faith. The retention rate (the percentage of those raised in the faith who remain Catholic as adults) for Italian American Catholics is actually quite high and has fallen more slowly than the overall U.S. Catholic retention rate. In the 1970s, the Italian American Catholic retention rate was 88%. This dropped a bit to 85% in the 1980s and a bit more, 82%, in the 1990s. Yet, even in the 2000s it averaged 77% (the retention rate for all Catholics in 2010 was 68%). The fall in the Italian American Catholic retention rate is not as extreme as the drop in Catholic affiliation for Italian Americans in general.

Instead, some Italian American Catholics must be choosing to raise their children in another faith or no faith at all. Why would this happen? I think (just my opinion; no real data) it has something to do with many post-World War II Italian Americans moving out of the “Little Italies”—those urban ethnic enclaves of their immigrant ancestors and into the suburbs. Here they were less likely to be around other Italians and/or Catholics and became less connected to Italian culture, language, and tradition (CARA parish surveys indicate the number of Masses celebrated in Italian have dropped by a half or more in the last decade).

Data on the religion and ancestry of the spouses of this sub-group of the population are hard to find (i.e., even smaller samples). What is available does indicate that Italian American Catholics are increasingly likely to be married to spouses who do not share their faith. Many of the Italian American Catholics who left the old neighborhoods are no longer with us, but their kids and grandkids are. Some of them don’t share the faith of grandma and grandpa.

In the 1970s, only 11% of Italian Americans self-identified their religion as Protestant. In the 2000s this had nearly doubled to 19%. A similar increase in the non-affiliated or “Nones” has occurred, with 7 percent of Italian Americans self-identifying as Nones in the 1970s and 14 percent identifying as such in the 2000s. Again these changes exceed the pace of the drop in Italian American Catholic retention so it’s not primarily and issue of leaving. Instead it’s a story of a faith failing to be reproduced among this ancestry group.

The mystery is by no means solved and I’m no detective, but these are my deductions and data on this topic so far. Regardless, as the grandson of an Italian Catholic grandmother (the family name was Filippini) it makes me sad to see the link between this ancestry group and the Catholic faith weaken.

Above photo courtesy of nmcbean at Flickr Creative Commons.

Some Odds and Ends

2011-06-30T13:26:00.008-04:00

It is a busy time at CARA. We hope to get back to more regular posting soon. Here are a few asides from recent data, posts, and publications, as well as a note of some awards.

Mass Attendance Continues to be Extraordinarily Stable
Despite “conventional wisdom” or anecdotes one often hears, there continues to be no evidence in survey data of a decline in Catholic Mass attendance nationally. Yet, it isn’t increasing either. For more than a decade now CARA has tracked Mass attendance in its national polls of self-identified adult Catholics (representative surveys using random selection/probability sampling). The figure below shows the percentage of Catholics attending every week (which is always smaller than the percentage attending in any given week).

In the 20 surveys shown here since 2000, there are no differences across time that exceed margin of sampling error. More so the regression trend line is essentially zero (-.0001) meaning absolute stability. In our most recent survey, conducted in May and June 2011, the percentage of Catholics attending every week is estimated at 24%. As we’ve noted elsewhere with growth in the Catholic population over the last decade, even a stable Mass attendance trend line means more Catholics attending in real numbers (i.e. 24% of the adult Catholic population in 2011 is larger than 24% of this population in 2000).

Men Leaving and Marriage
Last week in OSV, CARA had a piece on the decline in the number of marriages in the Church. As we note some of this change may be related to an increase in the number of Catholics choosing to marry non-Catholics (and choosing to marry in another house of worship or a secular setting). We do know that the likelihood of a Catholic marrying a non-Catholic in the Church is strongly associated with the larger presence of other Catholics in their diocese. Numbers and proximity matter.

But something else is going on as well. Males raised Catholic are slightly more likely than females raised Catholic to leave the faith as adults. The retention rate among male Catholics in the last two General Social Surveys (GSS) is estimated to be 66% (i.e., two-thirds of males raised Catholic self-identify as Catholic as adults). By comparison, the retention rate among Catholic females is 71%. The end result of this is that there are now fewer Catholic men who have never married than Catholic women who have never married.

This circumstance was not evident as recently as 1980 when there 4.4 million Catholic never married adult (age 18 or older) men and 4.3 million Catholic never married adult females (extrapolating from survey and Census data). Thus, at that time there was nearly one Catholic never married women for every one Catholic never married man.

With the male Catholic retention rate dropping more steeply in recent years than the female Catholic rate, there are currently 7.6 million never married Catholic adult men and 9.1 million never married Catholic adult women. Or in other terms, there are now 1.2 never married Catholic women for every one Catholic never married man.

Further evidence for this emerging distribution can simply be seen in the demographics of visitors to Catholic dating sites. For example, on CatholicMatch.com (via Quantcast) visitors are estimated to be 53% female and 47% male or about 1.13 female visits for each male visit.

Thus, it appears some of the increase in Catholics choosing to marry non-Catholics is in part a result of Catholic never married women being less likely to meet never married Catholic men (even a bigger issue in dioceses with small Catholic population percentages). The resulting increase in marriages between Catholics and people of other religious identities may in turn be leading to a drop in the total number of marriages in the Church as some choose to marry in other religious settings (or a secular venue).

Can Catholics Eat Chicken During Lent?
In a previous post, I commented on an indicator of apparent falling interest in anything Catholic online, as measured by Google’s search trend data. Here is another interesting aside using some of these data. As many are aware from their own experience (depending on your browser settings) Google makes “best guesses” to complete questions or statements using an autocomplete function. As Google describes:

As you type, Google's algorithm predicts and displays search queries based on other users' search activities. … All of the predicted queries that are shown in the drop-down list have been typed previously by Google users. … Predicted queries are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely objective factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. The autocomplete data is updated frequently to offer fresh and rising search queries.

So what happens when you start asking a question or making a statement in Google about Catholics, Catholicism, and the Catholic Church?

The first question is simple: Can Catholics…

There is apparent interest out there online in what Catholics can eat and when. Marriage and death also come up. Altering slightly to: Do Catholics…

We see Mary appear twice in the top five questions along with the rapture, Lent and evolution.

Some also seem to wonder if Catholics are Christians (or pagans). There is a bit there about hypocrites and being wrong as well. Anti-Catholicism is alive on the Internet.

When we turn to the institutional Church things get a bit more negative.

Some are concerned about the Catholic Church changing the Bible, apologizing for the Inquisition, and about just generally going mad.

Chicken is not the only question on the menu. Some also wonder if the Catholic Church is like a thick steak (see G.K. Chesterton), corrupt, or a force for good.

I am not sure if I am more distressed by the drop in Catholic searches on Google or by those who are using Google to ask questions about Catholicism tending to have some unusual curiosities.

Ireland Census 2011
In April we noted that the Census in Ireland will be an important barometer of sorts for Catholicism in Europe. The first report from that Census is out today. It does not include any information on religion. Reports scheduled for release next year will include this information. But the release today does note that Ireland has experienced strong population growth since 2006 : “The total population enumerated on census night 10th April was 4,581,269, an increase of 341,421 on the 2006 census.”A substantial part of this growth was through natural increase (births far outnumbering deaths).

This new total means that the Catholic population percentage will need to be at least 80.4% for Ireland to maintain the total number of Catholics counted in the 2006 Census. The Catholic population percentage in 2006 was 86.8%. Some expect this percentage to fall in the 2011 data. I don't think it will fall anywhere near the 80.4% mark. It may even grow given immigration patterns and the economic troubles of the country. But we will have to wait longer to see which is the case. I'd bet on a growing Catholic population in Ireland. If the Catholic population of Ireland did grow at the same rate of the overall population one would expect there to have been nearly 4 million Catholics in Ireland in April 2011.

Awards
Finally, CARA expresses gratitude and thanks to the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada for bestowing two awards related to our work.

This blog won first place for “Best Online Blog” with the comments: “Strong use of hard data. Blogger interprets data for the reader and proves stats are relevant to faith.”

A CARA piece in OSV entitled “Steady Change: A Future with Fewer Catholic Priests” won second place for “Best In-Depth News/Special Reporting” with the comments: “A good look at one of the greatest challenges facing the church today. Fine reporting and analysis.”

We are honored to have received these awards.

Is Interest in Catholicism falling online?

2011-06-03T17:43:00.008-04:00

I’ve written about research on Catholicism and new media elsewhere. When writing or speaking on the topic I always note that CARA surveys and web traffic research indicate that there is no website that is drawing the attention and visits of a large number of Catholics. Instead, when it comes to faith, Catholics appear to use the Internet in a very utilitarian fashion—either for looking up Mass times or looking for a Catholic charity after a disaster. Catholics are more likely to say they have visited a site for their parish or a Catholic school than any other religious or spiritual site and even then it's only about 5% of all adults for a six month period. Only a few Catholic websites (e.g., websites for the Vatican and the U.S. bishops) typically make it into the top 4,000 most visited in the United States.

In this post we reveal some new and perhaps disturbing evidence about the intersection (or lack thereof) of faith and new media. Searchers from the United States for anything with the term “Catholic” in them have dropped significantly in the 2004 to 2011 period (e.g., Catholic school, Catholic Church, Catholic Charities). The graph below shows weekly search volumes in Google (which dominates the search industry).

The 1.0 on the vertical axis of the figure below represents the average search volume (Google does not pull the curtain back to let you see real total numbers of searches). If the trend is at 2.0 on this axis then it means search volumes for queries including the word Catholic are twice as numerous in that week compared to the average for the period measured (2004 to 2011).

There is a clear and repetitive pattern in the graph. Searches for anything Catholic reach a low point each summer and peak in two weeks each year—weeks for Ash Wednesday and Christmas. The only outlier here is the significant increase in searches surrounding the death of Pope John Paul II and the conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI. In 2007, the search volumes dip below average for the period and have continued on a downward pace to date. The decline is linear. Americans are significantly less likely to search for anything Catholic than they were seven years ago.

Need some context? The figure below overlays the search pattern for the NFL and American Idol. As one can see there is not some generalized downturn in searches for anything. This figure also shows the relative likelihood that someone is searching for something Catholic and searching for two of the juggernauts of American popular culture.

Need more context? Here is anything Catholic up against the social network—Facebook. No contest as you might expect (even though one in four Americans is Catholic).

The strange thing is that this is phenomenon does not appear to be limited to the United States. The trend for the United Kingdom is shown in the figure below. A similar pattern is evident—although there is more random volatility week to week.

Switching to another language and country the figure below shows the trend in Germany. It appears Germans share a propensity to Google things Catholic (or “Katholische”) around Christmas but there is no Ash Wednesday bump as in the United States.

In France we have a decline but perhaps a hint of some renewed search interest in the short-term.

Initially, Australia seems to break the pattern until you remember that the summer months here are in December and January.

Brazil shows the steepest decline but this is in part due to a lack of search volume record in 2004.

Finally put it all together and here is a look for Google searches for anything Catholic globally in five languages. The red is Italian. Here there is the clearest visual pattern but we cannot learn much from it as the search volume appears to be strongly related to seasonal searches for the Italian resort town of Cattolica.

Without a doubt there are many Catholic web sites or blogs where traffic has increased dramatically in recent years (from foreign and/or domestic searches/visits). This is no surprise. Each Catholic website has but a small share of the overall population looking for things Catholic online. And just as individual stocks can rise even as the overall stock market falls some Catholic websites are doing well (and will continue to do so) despite the apparent fall in general interest in anything Catholic related online.

Is this cause to panic? Certainly not. Should we be concerned? Yes. These graphs represent the behavior of millions of people (Catholic and non-Catholic) online. These aren’t responses to polls or attitudes expressed in a focus group. These are real world observations. People are doing less of something and when that thing is “Catholic” online we should wonder what the future is for Catholic new media.

With the introduction and adoption of all new technologies everyone races to get a spot in the medium. With the rise of the popular news press people certainly felt the need to create a Catholic presence (where arguably it retains the broadest reach) and this dynamic repeated itself with radio and television. But looking back the Catholic faith survived just fine without establishing a significant home in radio or television (as measured by ratings). The nexus of what it means to be Catholic is still the parish (e.g., the iPhone confession app is designed to be used in the confessional). Do we need a Catholic YouTube? No. Do we need Catholics on YouTube? Yes. However, the data shown above indicates that people may be less likely to be looking for Catholic content now than in the past. Why? That remains a mystery.

Blame Woodstock?

2011-05-18T19:46:00.036-04:00

The early reactions to the highly anticipated John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s report “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010” reveal some interesting interactions between the media, the Church, scientists, and the public.

Take Laurie Goodstein's story in The New York Times as an example (...within the last year Goodstein has come under fire from many claiming she has an anti-Catholic bias. She has publicly responded to these claims). The Times was one of the outlets that broke the Wednesday media embargo on the report following the lead of Religion News Service. At the time of this post, Goodstein's story quotes from interviews with a few sources about the research, none are scientists and most seem unlikely to be objective readers. She has contacted me a few times in the last decade regarding news stories about the Church. From these interactions and regularly reading her work, I personally do not think she is biased against the Church as some claim. Instead I think she has some of those general journalistic tendencies to mistrust both the institutions she covers and scientific studies—especially when the science is funded by one of these institutions. This comes out clearly in her story on the John Jay study.

She writes, “…the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s. Known occurrences of sexual abuse of minors by priests rose sharply during those decades, the report found, and the problem grew worse when the church’s hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims. The “blame Woodstock” explanation has been floated by bishops since the church was engulfed by scandal in the United States in 2002 and by Pope Benedict XVI after it erupted in Europe in 2010.”

Her last sentence leads to the perception that Church officials were looking for an explanation (presumably deflecting responsibility) and found one to their liking as early as 2002, “floated” this explanation and that they then commissioned a $1.8 million research study to reflect this explanation. Goodstein’s characterization of this as the “blame Woodstock” is an unnecessary and ridiculous oversimplification (the study speaks much more broadly to the social changes occurring across decades) and is even in conflict with her own broader description of the findings. As she states in the text above this explanation also prominently includes Church-related factors such as “priests who were poorly prepared and monitored” and that “the church’s hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims.” That doesn’t sound as simple as the “blame Woodstock” sound bite that creates the narrative for the rest of the story.

But the impression her simple “blame Woodstock” comment made has and will continue to have an impact (it appears to have gone “viral” with more than 12,400 mentions in online descriptions of the study in the last two days). Because her story was among the first (breaking the embargo) and because it was in such a prominent publication it seems to have created a popular frame for discussion of the report. Take as an example the following comment on Goodstein's story by a reader:

“What!?? .... I am and intend to remain a lifelong Catholic, but the assertion that the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's caused priests to abuse children is ludicrously embarrassing to the Church .... in a different context let's try this one on for size: the current economic turmoil has caused me to rob a couple of banks therefore don't prosecute me .... the church hierarchy needs to get real on this horrible issue. Whatever happened to individual conscience and responsibility?”

Goodstein does note that “…this study is likely to be regarded as the most authoritative analysis of the scandal in the Catholic Church in America” but then I think attempts to question the objectivity of the research by following this by noting the cost of the study and that “About half was provided by the bishops.”

The lead author of the study, Karen Terry, is a well-respected expert on sexual offenders and offenses. She was educated at the University of California, Irvine and Cambridge University. She is a full professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice where she serves as Dean of Research. I doubt Professor Terry would compromise her reputation and career to produce a study that “fits” something that Church leaders are accused of devising and “floating” in 2002. She did not “need” this project to advance her career (it will likely bring her more public criticism than praise). There is no institutional dependence or relationship with the Church and the program at John Jay would have continued on just as it is if they had not received this grant.

In the past, I have been a researcher on social scientific studies commissioned by the USCCB. I can say this of my experience. I was never asked to do anything other than find the answers to the bishops’ research questions. There has never been a single suggestion or request to edit, alter, or influence my work in any way. I believe Professor Terry and her team would have experienced the same interactions. As academics it makes no sense to conduct a study and write a report that is nothing less than the best research possible. Even worse would be to create research that is intentionally inaccurate to serve the needs of the party commissioning the study. This would be criminal fraud (note that the John Jay study includes federal funding). Are there “scientists” who might be willing (and able) to do this? Sure. But they are more likely to be found in for-profit, private sector research firms or in advocacy “think tanks.” They are not expected to be objective (nor rigorous). These are the “hired guns” of the scientific community who are not worried about or interested in government funding. But for college faculty who are doing peer-reviewed work, intentionally producing inaccurate research is just untenable (recent cases of scientific misconduct in the medical and pharmaceutical fields have led to dismissals and criminal charges).

Ironically, after years of being criticized for not doing enough about abuse, now the Church is suspiciously scrutinized for funding this study with well-respected academic researchers? I believe the Catholic Church was seeking truth in commissioning this study. It is part of their effort to understand abuse in the past and prevent it in the future. This report's explanations do not provide any sort of excuses or absolution.

The most difficult aspect of the John Jay study for the media and public to “digest” is likely to be that social context mattered (among other causal factors). Goodstein and others will simplify and belittle this finding as “blame Woodstock” but doing so indicates a general lack of awareness of the massive amount of research on the social psychology of deviance and crime that has been conducted in the last 50 years (...has any journalist interviewed criminologists or social psychologists who are not at John Jay and asked them their opinion of the research?). We tend to think of people who commit crimes or other deviant behavior as “bad apples”—people with a psychological disorder or an exceptional lack of morality. We strongly emphasize nature (biological and psychological) explanations of their behavior and minimize the role of nurture (society, socialization, and social context). This is a grave error. Let me explain.

Would you kill another person if instructed to do so? Of course not. You are a moral person. You do not break laws. You would have no motivation to do so. How many people would?

Stanley Milgram, “the man who shocked the world,” asked a sample of psychologists this question in the early 1960s and most thought a very small percentage of the population would do this—those with psychopathic personalities. Milgram then devised an experiment to see just how many “normal” people might unknowingly be inclined to kill another person in an nonthreatening social context. His inspiration? The Holocaust. He wondered how could we explain this extraordinary evil, which required the participation of so many ordinary Germans? Were there just a lot of bad apples? No. Context mattered a lot and Milgram's study became the defining research for understanding the social psychology of deviance. To see it yourself search YouTube for a 2009 BBC replication of Milgram’s original 1961 experiment (there are multiple copies and video from earlier studies as well). Milgram's research is considered unethical by today’s standards due to the psychological harm it may cause participants. But the original study and its many replications indicate there is about a 2 in 3 chance you would kill someone else if instructed to do so in the right context.

Still don’t believe context matters much? There is more. Much more. The Stanford Prison Experiment, the Robber’s Cave Experiment, the Asch Conformity Experiment, the Rosenhan Experiment, the Good Samaritan Experiment, etc… I could go on and on about studies showing the importance of context and the largely unrecognized malleability of human personality and behavior. One of the best summations of some of this social psychology research is by the lead researcher in the Stanford Prison Experiment, Philip Zimbardo. If you have 20 minutes watch one of the most revealing and insightful lectures (link to TED talks) on the topic of how and why people can come to do evil things.

The fact that social context “matters” does not absolve the person committing the illegal or deviant action from responsibility for their decisions in any way. It also does not deny that bad apples or individual personality factors matter as well. It just helps us understand how deviant decision can become more or less likely in different social settings and climates. The good news from social psychology is that this means we can create institutions and rules that modify social context and make the likelihood that people make decisions that lead to deviant or illegal behavior much less likely. I think this is what the Church has been trying to do in recent years and will clearly continue to work on in the future. Its funding of this study and ongoing institutional development is something that should be more widely adopted. Note the John Jay study researchers found that “incidence of child sexual abuse has declined in both the Catholic Church and in society generally, though the rate of decline is greater in the Catholic Church” (pg. 13).

For example, the incidence of sexual abuse of students by teachers in America's schools is not well understood (...for some revealing numbers see a Google News search for stories about arrests for these allegations in the last month). When these cases are in the news they tend to be framed as an issue of bad apple teachers. Rarely is the social context of schooling in America today considered as a possible contributing factor to this problem. The magnitude of abuse in U.S. schools has been noted in a previous government funded study by Virginia Commonwealth University Professor Charol Shakeshaft (she is cited in the John Jay report). Many have disregarded Shakeshaft's work. If “blame Woodstock” sticks to the John Jay study I feel this research may be largely ignored as well.

I am still making my way through the John Jay report. I hope readers in the public will make it beyond media representations and read it themselves as well. As a researcher, I do not see evidence of conspiracies or “white washing” that is suggested in many comments to the media coverage of the report (few social psychologists or criminologists will be surprised by the period effect findings or that context matters). I think the research community will appreciate the contribution this report makes to the study of sexual abuse in the Church and more broadly in American society. The reception of the report by the media and public is another matter entirely.

Spotlight on Vocations: Interested but Discouraged

2011-04-29T14:17:00.002-04:00

CARA recently released results of two surveys—one of Catholic men who have become priests and the other of Catholic women who have become sisters or nuns. The results provide interesting insights about what might cause men and women to consider these vocations and what might cause them to follow through on this consideration. Yet “cause” is a strong word and more often than not the results instead reveal correlations.

For example, 65% of men who become priests indicate they participated in Eucharistic Adoration before entering the seminary. Does Eucharistic Adoration cause a man to become a priest? In most cases, probably not. Instead, the same thing(s) that made that man interested in becoming a priest also likely made him interested in participating in in Eucharistic Adoration.

Most are well aware that too few men and women are choosing a religious vocation to keep up with those lost to retirement and mortality. The numbers of priests, brothers, and sisters is declining annually (numbers of permanent deacons and lay people in parish ministry are increasing—a topic to be covered in a future post). One of the biggest challenges for the Church is to inspire more American Catholics to seriously consider these vocations.

CARA surveys of the adult Catholic population consistently reveal that more than 15% of Catholic men say they have ever considered becoming a priest or religious brother. In the most recent survey this percentage was 17% (margin of sampling error is ±4.5 percentage points).

However, only about 3% of Catholic men say they have considered this “very seriously.” That small percentage actually represents a large real number. That percentage is equivalent to about 840,000 men in the United States today (there have been 12,958 men ordained as priests in the last 25 years). We can roughly estimate that about one in 100 Catholic men who say they “very seriously” considered becoming a priest are likely to follow through and be ordained. If the Church could just increase that to two or three in every 100 who “very seriously” consider this, concerns over priest shortages would end.

However, things may not be so simple. Generational differences show that young Catholic men are much less likely to say they have ever considered becoming a priest than those of the Vatican II Generation (those born between 1943 and 1960). Fewer than one in ten male Millennial Catholics (born 1982 or later) say they have ever considered becoming a priest.

The pattern for Catholic women’s consideration of a religious vocation is similar. Fifteen percent say they have ever considered becoming a nun or religious sister. However, only 0.6% says they have considered this “very seriously.” This is equivalent to only about 170,000 women in the United States today. Thus, there are more than four times as many men who say they have “very seriously” considered becoming a priest or brother than women who say they have “very seriously” considered a religious vocation.

Mirroring the generational differences for men’s consideration of a priestly or religious vocation, only about one in ten women in the youngest Catholic generation say they have ever considered becoming a sister or nun.

The likelihood that someone has considered one of these vocations varies by other attributes. For example, in the general Catholic male population 17% say they have considered becoming a priest or brother but this increases to 21% among Catholic men who attend Mass weekly. Some of these correlates are shown in the table below. Many are consistent with reported behaviors and attitudes found in the recent CARA surveys of ordinands and women professing their perpetual vows.

The most significant factor in any CARA survey where the vocations question is asked is attendance at a Catholic college or university. About four in ten men (40%) and women (41%) who have attended, report having considered a vocation at some point. Attendance at a Catholic high school or primary school also provides a modest boost in the numbers.

CARA surveys of ordinands and women who have recently professed their perpetual vows also show that encouragement is clearly important. Most ordinands (89 percent) report being encouraged to consider the priesthood by at least one person in their lives. Two in three ordinands were encouraged by a parish priest, while two in five were encouraged by a friend, their mother, or a parishioner.

Surprisingly, six in ten ordinands also report being discouraged from considering the priesthood by a friend or classmate (compared to the four in ten who were encouraged by a friend). Half related that they were discouraged from considering the priesthood by a parent or family member.

Parents or family members (includes mother, father, grandparent or other relative) are as likely to encourage as they are to discourage ordinands from considering the priesthood. Friends are slightly more likely to discourage than encourage consideration of priestly vocation, while priests are three times more likely to encourage than to discourage consideration of a vocation to the priesthood.

Ordinands to the priesthood are generally more likely than sisters professing perpetual vows to report that someone encouraged them to explore their vocation. Only one group—encouragement from friends—is the same for both ordinands and sisters. Ordinands are twice as likely as sisters to report encouragement from their mothers, fathers, and grandparents.

However, ordinands to the priesthood are also more likely than sisters professing perpetual vows to report being discouraged to explore their religious vocation by a friend. Ordinands and sisters are equally likely to report being discouraged by a family member.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to increasing vocations is the encouragement/discouragement dynamic. Getting one more additional person per 100 who is “very seriously” considering becoming a priest to follow that vocation may depend on altering the culture of the American Catholic laity. There are more than enough men who say they have “very seriously” considered becoming a priest. But are there enough people around them encouraging them to follow through on this consideration? Nearly seven in ten U.S. Catholics say they have not encouraged vocations and that they would not do so in the future.

These are tough odds to face—especially with consideration of vocations falling among the youngest adult Catholics.

-CARA researchers Mark Gray, Melissa Cidade, and Mary Gautier contributed to this post.

Coming Home?

2011-04-22T16:26:00.032-04:00

How does the U.S. Catholic population percentage remain 25% as it has measured in surveys for decades? Robert Putnam and Bruce Campbell provide a typical argument for the religious studies field: “Such stasis in the aggregate is possible only through an influx of Catholics from another source—immigration” (American Grace, pg. 299). Yet rarely do you ever see anyone actually run the numbers to see just what the precise estimated effect immigration is having on the Catholic population. Below is an attempt to do just that. In doing this we may be discovering the impact of something else: some Catholics come home.

Let's use 2007 as an example. This is a year in which a number of major studies on religious affiliation were conducted (e.g., Pew, Putnam and Campbell, and ARIS in the following year) and it is also a recent year in which we have all the available data we need to make the calculation (there is always a lag in data collection and reporting whether it is Vatican Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, or the Department of Homeland Security). It is the case that surveys typically only include adults age 18 or older. Thus, simply applying the percentages of some of these studies to total population figures (including those under 18) may not reflect reality precisely. However, it is likely that the Catholic percentage of the under 18 population is even higher than it is for adults. Latinos in America—of which more than 60% self-identify as Catholic—are more likely to be of parenting age than those of other races and ethnicities and have a higher fertility rate than non-Latinos. Thus, there are reasons to believe that applying the adult Catholic population percentage to total population figures actually underestimates the total size of the U.S. Catholic population. It is also the case that without the Census including a question about religion, surveys are the best data source we have to study this question.

In 2007, the U.S. total population numbered about 299.4 million. Twenty-five percent of this figure is 74,849,500 and represents the survey estimated total Catholic population for this year (note: The Official Catholic Directory always lags behind survey estimates as its Catholic population figure is more of an estimate of parish-connected Catholics—excluding those who self-identify as Catholic but who are not registered with a parish nor regularly attend Mass). In 2008, the U.S. total population numbered about 301.6 million. Twenty-five percent of this figure is 75,405,289. Thus, the survey-based estimated growth in the Catholic population from 2007 to 2008 is +555,789. (Note that multiple surveys continue into 2010 to estimate the Catholic population percentage to be 25%; margin of error is not a significant issue).

So how many new Catholics can we account for in 2007 from other data sources? 1,000,118. This is the total number of additions in the U.S. through infant baptism (878,922), adult baptism (42,898), and receptions into full communion (78,298) recorded by parishes nationally in The Official Catholic Directory 2008 (excluding other territories reported there; e.g., Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico). Twelve percent of this total includes adults.

But there are also always Catholics lost in any given year. Most of these occur as older Catholics pass away. The Church recorded 442,729 deaths in 2007. However, not all self-identified Catholics have Catholic funeral services/burial. A better estimate is to assume that about 25% of all deaths that occurred in the U.S. in 2007 were Catholics (there is no reason to assume Catholics have higher mortality than non-Catholics). There were an estimated 2,423,712 deaths in the United States in 2007. Twenty-five percent of this figure is 605,928. Note that there were 1.45 infant baptisms for each Catholic who passed away in 2007.

There are also people raised Catholic who leave the faith in each year (about half losing any religious affiliation and the other half adopting a new faith). Pew estimated that 10.1% of all adults in the United States in 2007 were former Catholics. In 2007, the adult population was 225,746,092 and 10.1% of this figure is 22,800,355. Yet nowhere near 22.8 million people left the Church in one year or even one decade. CARA research and others estimate a fairly stable annual retention rate over time. Most often those leaving do so as young adults (median age of 21). CARA research indicates that the annual percentage of former Catholics leaving in any one year recently has ranged from about 2% to 3% of the total. If we assume that 2.5% of all former Catholics left in 2007, the total leavers for the year would be 570,009. Adding deaths plus those leaving the faith leads to an overall Catholic population loss estimate of 1,175,937.

That means additions to the faith through infant baptism and adult conversion in 2007 total 1,000,118 and losses by deaths or leaving the faith are estimated at 1,175,937. That leads to an estimated population deficit for the year of -175,819. Thus, through baptisms and conversions alone the Catholic Church can nearly maintain its population but not grow at the rate of the total population (175,819 represents only 0.2% of the total Catholic population of 2007). The gap between the +555,789 growth estimate for the population as measured by surveys and the estimated deficit from the inputs and outputs noted above represents 731,608 Catholics unaccounted for.

The Department of Homeland Security estimates that about 901,000 individuals arrived in the U.S. as legal permanent residents or as undocumented immigrants in 2007. Pew and other researchers estimate that the Catholic percentage of this population is typically about 46%. Thus, we can assume that at least 414,629 Catholic immigrants came to the United States in 2007. This figure narrows the unaccounted for gap noted above to 316,979.

However, note that with the addition of the immigration estimate there is now measurable Catholic population growth that can be accounted for with new American Catholics in 2007 totaling 1,414,747 and Catholic losses still estimated at 1,175,937. This puts the known net Catholic growth for the year at +238,810 (which would be a growth rate of +0.32% compared to +0.74% for the total U.S. population).

But survey estimates of the Catholic population post-2007 continue to measure that about 25% of the U.S. adult population self-identifies as Catholic (e.g., the 2008 General Social Survey estimates this to be 25.1% which is identical to the ARIS estimate of the same year). So who are the 316,979 other unaccounted for Catholics? They are “in” the survey data so where can we find them in the population?

First, it is likely that immigration estimates are slight undercounts and the Catholic percentage of immigrants may be higher than estimated. Thus, immigration could matter a bit more than estimated but immigration cannot be the only factor in maintaining the Catholic population percentage at 25%. Note that Catholic immigrants are estimated to account for about 24% of all new Catholics in the United States in 2007. And after 2007, as the recession hit, there was a decline in the number of Catholics who are foreign-born as many immigrants returned to their country of birth. Yet still in 2010, the General Social Survey estimates the U.S. Catholic population percentage to be 25.2%.

Second, it is quite possible that the estimates for the number of Catholics leaving the faith are too high. Or...

Third, the unaccounted for growth may also be related to some degree to former Catholics who have “come home.” This merely implies a renewed self-identification as Catholic and may not reflect Mass attendance. It is an understudied phenomenon. Most research in recent years has analyzed religion in terms of a single change—from a childhood faith to a new adult faith (or no faith). Yet, more switching is undoubtedly occurring. This includes those who leave their childhood faith—most likely to have no affiliation at all—who then later return to that same faith as they marry, have children, face difficulties in life, or begin to think of their own mortality.

No systematic, national, faith-specific estimates for just how many people do this annually are available from any recent studies (although we can more directly measure this in other countries where a religion question is on their census). It also appears that survey questions currently used to measure affiliation and retention may not be accurately measuring religious change in the United States.

There are some diocesan estimates of the numbers of Catholics who come home associated with specific “Catholics Come Home” campaigns. However, these fall short of something scientific and reliable as the comparison is almost always made between a diocese’s Mass attendance rate during these campaigns in Lent or Advent (where Mass attendance is always higher) to regular diocesan October headcounts (where Mass attendance is lower). This is an “apples and oranges” comparison and I would imagine that all dioceses have higher Mass attendance numbers during Lent and Advent than in October—with or without such campaigns. It is also the case that the estimates in this post pre-date any campaign by the Catholics Come Home group. These are very well-done ads I am just not aware of any scientific measurement of their effectiveness or lack thereof (although I do know of one forthcoming study that will assess the long-term effects). There are also some aspects of the fact claims made by this organization that I do not believe to be measurable (e.g., “souls returned to Church”). At the same time, regardless of any effect(s), these are great videos with really good messages.

The next phase of research on religious change—or the religious marketplace as it is often termed—should have some focus on these Catholic “returning customers.” My hunch is that once this is done the Catholic story of population growth will be more than “if it weren’t for immigration…”

Above photo courtesy of The Intrepid Traveler at Flickr Creative Commons.

Census Sunday in Ireland

2011-04-10T19:36:00.008-04:00

Residents of the Republic of Ireland filled out census forms today. Unlike in the U.S., there is a religion question on Ireland's census. The data collected will be an important barometer of sorts for Catholicism in Europe. Ireland is among Europe's most Catholic nations in affiliation and frequency of Mass attendance.

This year, a group called Atheists Ireland has actively campaigned for residents to be "Honest to Godless." This group doubts previous census estimates of the Catholic population: "We believe the true figure for Roman Catholics is much lower. … We believe that this inaccuracy happens because many people tick their childhood religion out of habit, or tick a religion that they don’t really practice, or let somebody else fill in the answer for them. But you won’t write in your childhood home address unless you still live there. So don’t write in your childhood religion unless you still really practice it."

Ireland has undergone enormous change in the last decade. It's economy boomed as the Celtic Tiger and drew in immigrants from elsewhere in Europe. Then it went bust with a housing slump and recession and many immigrants left. Irish Catholics learned the details of physical and sexual abuse of children committed by clergy and men and women religious in the Ryan and Murphy reports and many read the pastoral letter of Pope Benedict XVI that followed apologizing for the abuse. Ireland, like most other areas in Europe, has also been affected by a generalized and generational decline in religious practice and formal religious affiliation.

Yet in the last census, in 2006, there were more Catholics in the Republic of Ireland than had ever been counted in any previous census of this territory dating back to 1881. Just under 3.7 million identified themselves as being Catholic in 2006 representing 87% of the country's population and an increase of 6.7% from the previous census in 2002. Although growing, Catholicism has lost a bit of its overall affiliation percentage. Some of this has occurred through immigration. In Ireland this has resulted in some new population that is not Catholic. Although significant numbers of immigrants are also from Catholic areas of Eastern Europe (e.g., Poland, Lithuania). Some of the drop is also clearly related to changes in the Catholic retention rate.

Some evidence of the changes occurring can be seen in population numbers within specific birth cohorts over time. For example, among young adults in 2006 (those born from 1972 to 1986), there are losses of Catholic affiliation. Catholics between the ages of 15 and 19 in 1991 numbered 312,899, As of the 2006 census, this group (then 30 to 34) numbered only 289,676 for a loss of more than 23,000 (-7.4 percent change).

At the same time, numbers of older Catholics, those born from 1952 to 1971 have experienced growth. Among these adults in Ireland (ages 35 to 54 in 2006) there was a population gain of +87,737 between 1991 and 2006. Some of these gains may be related to adult conversion and certainly a lot of it may be related to immigration. However, some of it is also likely related to life-cycle changes. Some Catholics "come home" in their thirties after leaving the faith they were raised in during their teens and twenties (i.e., before the 1991 census). Among Catholics born before 1952 the losses in the table above are mostly related to mortality.

Once the 2011 census data are out it will be interesting to see what happened to the 1972 to 1986 birth cohort. Will losses have been stemmed as Catholics come back? There actually is some evidence of this already occurring when comparing the numbers in 2002 to 2006 (yet this is not a perfect match for birth years).

Dire predictions have been in the news for Ireland. Last month a paper presented by three physicists predicted religion would soon become "extinct" in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe using census data. I would comment further on this paper if I thought it had any merit (you did not misread that last sentence it said "physicists" ... I promise never to address the unified field theory or the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle on this blog). The paper had all the qualities religion reporters love but I don't think many sociologists of religion take it seriously. Its a good example of research that forgets the numbers being studied are human beings, not particles. History has many predictions of the demise of religion. This paper just represents the latest.

Hispanic/Latino(a) Population by Diocese

2011-04-01T16:50:00.010-04:00

Census 2010 has released the national data on race and ethnicity that will be used for the U.S. House of Representatives redistricting process. One of the results from these data that has drawn the most interest is the growth and distribution of the Hispanic/Latino(a) population, which now represent 16% of the U.S. population (up from 12.5% in 2000). The Census Bureau blog notes that "More than half of the growth in the total population of the United States between 2000 and 2010 was due to the increase in the Hispanic population."

As noted in a previous post, 63% of Hispanics self-identified their religion as Catholic in the United States in 2010. Thus, growth in these numbers often represents growth in membership for the Catholic Church.

CARA takes the Census numbers and analyzes these within diocesan boundaries. The map below, created by CARA Senior Research Associate Mary Gautier, shows the distribution of the Hispanic/Latino(a) population by diocese (click here or the map to enlarge). It is important to note that these data make no distinction regarding religion (this is not a Census question). In green dioceses 16% or more of the population identifies their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino(a). The dark green represents areas where this is a majority.

A Volatile Mix: Research, News, and Advocacy Groups

2011-03-28T18:54:00.016-04:00

I should have known better (I was a reporter once)…

I was interviewed last week by a reporter from the Catholic News Agency (CNA) for a story regarding the Public Religion Research Institute’s (PRRI) “Catholic Attitudes on Gay and Lesbian Issues: A Comprehensive Portrait from Recent Research.” In this post I'll pull back the curtain a bit and describe how news about research can go astray—especially when competing advocacy groups are reading and weighing in on every number and word. I'll also provide a look at some data that was not part of the PRRI report on this topic.

I am quoted several times in the CNA story in my capacity as a survey researcher and I have no issue with the accuracy of my quotes but I believe the story is written in a way to give the impression that I doubt the results of the PRRI study, which indicate many Catholics are “supportive of legal recognitions of same-sex relationships.” CNA may have its doubts about the results and I believe they have written a story that reflects this impression; however these doubts are just not generally shared by me.

I do have some issues with the presentation of the PRRI results in their report and press release. These did not contain information which is typically reported in documents like this, such as the number of interviews and margin of error for sub-groups (these are reported in a separate document). When specifically making statements about “majority” opinions this information is essential for people to be able to evaluate the precision of estimates. Thus, it is true that in my opinion, the PRRI study was missing some information in presentation in the results report but the consistency of these results with other studies leads me to believe it is not some sort of outlier.

Eventually the CNA author of the story notes, “Gray said that some numbers in the report are ‘pretty consistent’ with publicly available data.” If any comment I made was to be used as a lead that should have been the one. My comments about the study’s presentation should not have been used as the feature or the headline of this story, which was “Info missing from survey claiming Catholic support for gay ‘marriage.’”

Thus, I became concerned about the presentation of my statements in the CNA story. I expressed this concern to CNA the day the story came out. I did not receive a direct response [update: I did receive an email from the editor on Tuesday 3/29]. However, they did add some additional content to the quote above that reads “…and that he considers the study to be accurate within its own margin of error.”

On all sides of the debate regarding this research there seems to be so much discussion now of “is it a majority or is it not?” I can’t be clear enough about this: It simply is what it is, given the margin of error. Surveys are not referendums. No votes are taken of a population. These are interviews with a sample. More so, what if it is a majority? Does this imply that the Catholic Church needs to change to better fit the attitudes of the Catholic population in the United States? There are more than a billion members in the Catholic Church worldwide. Why would this global Church alter its teachings to meet 50% plus one of the current preferences of some 70 million people in North America? Even if the U.S. bishops did want to do this they can’t exactly go to Rome and say “We’re going to go in a different direction on this teaching because it is not playing well in recent polling data in the United States.” The Church is not a corporation that must be responsive to customers nor is it a democratic government that must represent voters. Instead the Church is a religious institution. The whole point is that it stands for a particular system of belief.

At the same time, it is still useful to understand public opinion and the implications it may present. And the best method of estimating something with greater precision is to triangulate—comparing the results of multiple surveys. This is some of what PRRI does in its report. One can further compare to trends in other surveys including the widely used and trusted General Social Survey (GSS). However, this source also has limitations with sub-group margins of error.

The GSS question on this issue is specific to marriage (i.e., excluding civil unions). In 2010, 20% of adult Catholics “strongly agreed” that “homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another.” An additional 28% “agreed.” Thus, overall 48% of Catholic respondents indicated some level of agreement with this statement. The margin of error for the 2010 Catholic data is ±5.8 percentage points. Thus, the point estimate for agreement could range as high as 54% or as low as 42%. Only 13% of Catholics expressed agreement with this statement in 1988 when the question was first asked (margin of error was ±5.8 percentage points). Levels of agreement with the statement have grown as disagreement has diminished. A consistent percentage of Catholics state they “neither agree nor disagree” with the statement.

The point again is that we just don't know if it is exactly a majority or not now. The point estimates in the GSS are too close to the 50% mark and the margins of error are too large to say it is one way or the other. Question wording only provides an additional complication. I was quoted in the CNA story as stating a preference for the three option question including civil unions (see the discussion on pg. 8 of the PRRI results report). I think this likely best reflects the opinion of Catholics whereas the two option question artificially constrains preferences/opinions (which may be a political reality in a real world voting/referendum situation; yet not in a survey measuring attitudes). It is the case that there is a majority of Catholics who would support some form of legal recognition in the PRRI data that is beyond margin of error.

There is another GSS question that has a longer history that is related to the results of the marriage question shown above. The GSS asks respondents if “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” is wrong. In the 2010 GSS, for the first time, the percentage of adult Catholics indicating this is “not wrong at all” outnumbered those who said it was “always wrong” (44% compared to 42%). Yet here again margin of error prevents us from knowing if this is a precise distribution in the population in 2010 (margin of error was ±5.9 percentage points).

As one can see from the trend in the figure below, the real point of change occurs somewhere in the early 1990s and has continued to evolve to this day. Responses to this question differ by age with younger Catholics being more likely than older Catholics to say this is “not wrong at all.” However, the sharp change in the population overall in the early 1990s cannot be explained by generational replacement alone.

Of those Catholics who think that “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” is “not wrong at all,” 79% agree that “homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another.” Sixty-nine percent of Catholics who think this is “always wrong,” disagree with the “right to marry” statement.

It is the case that frequency of Mass attendance correlates with responses to these questions. PRRI pointed this out in the data (pg. 7 of their results report) and many who have been critical of the report have argued that this is “what really matters.” The only complication to this point of view is that Mass attendance varies by age and generation (something again that CNA did quote me on at the end of the story). So is it Mass attendance that makes one more likely to oppose civil unions or marriage for same-sex couples or is it something generational? It is likely both but which matters more? And again the figure above indicates some sort of “period effect” in the early 1990s that is also likely important. Margin of error for sub-groups is the biggest obstacle to understanding and disentangling these effects.

Among Catholics age 30 or younger at the time they were surveyed in the GSS from 2004 to 2010 (all available years for this question pooled together), 55% agreed that “homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another.” The margin of error for this group is ±5.9 percentage points. Is that a majority? Perhaps, but we still can’t be sure. Among those older than 30 at the time of their interview, 36% agreed with the statement. The margin of error for this group is ±5.7 percentage points. Is this a minority? Absolutely. There is a 19 percentage point gap (beyond margin of error) between these two groups. Attempting to dice this question further by age and Mass attendance leads to unacceptable sub-group sizes and margins of error in the GSS. However, it is the case that there is a 33 percentage point gap in the PRRI report between weekly Mass attenders and those with less than monthly attendance on the marriage question (26% supporting compared to 59%).

By the way I have no information about nor knowledge of the sources of funding for the PRRI research other than what they cite in their report. I was not asked by CNA to comment on this. I do wonder if CNA ever spoke to PRRI on this issue (or anything else)? Why wasn't any PRRI researcher quoted in their story? How did I become the focus? I can attest to the fact that I have not received (nor would accept) any funding for the comments and research I have shown above. As I have stated previously on this blog I do not do advocacy campaigns. Just the data/facts. But then again that is what got me into this whole thing. I may just care way too much about margins of error!

[A final aside if you've made it this far! ...When I was looking for sub-group margins of error in the PRRI report I told the CNA reporter that I did see a source with some information—Catholic News Service (CNS). They had interviewed and quoted a PRRI researcher (a good journalistic practice). I read the quote from their story: "based on interviews of about 600 Catholics, had a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percent, according to Cox." I then explained this margin to the CNA reporter. It was not until I read the CNA story that the numbers ran through my head and I realized a sample size of 600 has a margin of error of ±4 percentage points not ±6 percentage points. So as far as I can tell either the PRRI researcher misspoke or was misquoted, which I then quoted, to a reporter who then wrote a story that I consider misleading. I hope this sets the record straight.]

Emerging U.S. Catholic Trends: GSS 2010

2011-03-28T13:51:00.000-04:00

There are some surprises and interesting trends regarding the U.S. Catholic population in the newly released 2010 General Social Survey (GSS) data. This post is the first in a series describing some of the CARA analyses of this survey. To begin with, the 2010 GSS indicates (again) that the U.S. Catholic population continues to grow. One in four adults in the United States self-identifies their religious affiliation as Catholic.

This percentage has remained consistent (within margin of sampling error) in major surveys all the way back to the 1950s. As the total population grows, that 25% represents more Catholics in real numbers each year. The 2010 GSS represents the second consecutive estimate in the series where a minority of Americans self-identifies as Protestant (47%). The unaffiliated "Nones" continue to grow and are now estimated to make up 18% of the U.S. adult population.

The margin of sampling error for the Catholic sample of the GSS varies by year as the total number of respondents has changed over time. Overall, in the 2010 GSS 2,044 individuals were interviewed resulting in a margin of sampling error of ±2.2 percentage points (e.g., the table above; click to enlarge). This included interviews with 482 Catholic respondents resulting in a margin of error of ±4.5 percentage points when looking within this sub-group specifically.

The GSS indicates that the Catholic retention rate is continuing to slowly decline. In the 2010 GSS, it is estimated that 68% of adults in the U.S. who were raised Catholic, continue to self-identify as Catholic now.

In 1973, the Catholic retention rate was 84%. The current 68% estimate is identical to the Pew Religious Landscape study in 2007. If the current rate of decline continues (click the table below to enlarge), the Catholic retention rate is expected to be 54% in 2050.

Many assume that the only way the Catholic population could be maintaining its 25% share of the adult population is through immigration. Yet, clearly something more complex is going on. For one there is not enough immigration to fill the gap (more on this in a future post). Second, the GSS indicates that growth in the foreign-born Catholic population may have unexpectedly halted for a time.

The percentage of Catholics in the GSS reporting that they were foreign-born has dropped from 29% in 2006 to 23% in 2010. This difference is within the margins of error for the two surveys but there is a consistent downward trending observation in 2008. More so, these percentages have been expected to increase with real growth. It is too early to say this is a real decline but it certainly indicates a potential stalling in the growth of the foreign-born Catholic population.

In retrospect there was some evidence that this could be occurring. The Pew Hispanic Center has documented recent declines in segments of the non-citizen population. The sharpest decline in immigrant numbers occurred between 2007 and 2008—just as the U.S. entered a severe economic recession. Estimates of the non-citizen population have yet to reach 2007 levels again.

There is additional evidence of these changes in the responses to ethnicity and ancestry questions in the GSS. For example, the percentage of Catholics who self-identify their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino has dropped from 38% in 2006 to 32% in 2010 (click the table below to enlarge; note the best data for analysis are from 2006 to 2010 when the GSS began to employ Spanish language interview options). Again, these results are within margin of error but a trending pattern is emerging and this is another figure that was expected to show some growth at this time. More specifically we can see this data pattern among those who have emigrated from Mexico.

Some of what is occurring is likely related to recent immigration trends. However, some of it can also be attributed to declines in Catholic affiliation among Hispanics/Latinos. The GSS estimated that 70% of Hispanics/Latinos in the U.S. self-identified their religion as Catholic in 2006. This has dropped slightly to 63% in the 2010 survey.

The GSS does not show any drop in the Catholic affiliation percentages of non-Hispanic white adults in the United States during this period (22% in the three surveys since 2006).

The GSS is the primary social science source for representative data on the adult population in the United States (the American National Election Study series is another but this is limited to adult citizens). The GSS, based on face-to-face interviews with representative samples of the U.S. population, has been conducted since 1972. It is often featured in trend analyses in major studies of religion such as Pew’s report for the Religious Landscape Survey (example: pg. 18) and in Robert Putnam and David Campbell’s recent book American Grace (example: pg. 11).

Unfortunately, when the GSS is released there is no big press coverage or report of findings to read. Instead it is rather quietly made available to researchers (and the public). Literally, thousands of publications including journal articles, dissertations, and books have and will continue to cite these data. If you are interested in looking at the GSS data visit the Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) site from the University of California, Berkley. One note of caution, as shown in the last table above, when looking specifically at the results for Hispanic/Latino respondents it is best to focus on the surveys done in 2006, 2008, and 2010 when Spanish language interviews were available.

Sunday Morning: Deconstructing Catholic Mass attendance in the 1950s and now

2011-03-21T19:35:00.007-04:00

Social science is not just about surveys, trend data, or focus groups. Some of my favorite types of research involve content and historical analysis. The study of art, for example, can provide some amazing insight that is not visible on a spreadsheet. Norman Rockwell’s “Sunday Morning,” as shown below (click to enlarge), has always caught my eye as an interesting piece because it brings to life some of the survey results we have been seeing for many years and it did it on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post all the way back in May of 1959 (for more see: “Sunday Morning Slackers” from the Post).

Rockwell illustrated this piece five years after appearing in the national print ad shown below, which reads, “Light their life with faith. Bring them to worship this week.” This advertisement was sponsored by Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish lay people in an effort to encourage weekly religious service attendance—especially among parents with their children. This should be the first sign of something amiss with our recollections of this time…

They needed a national ad campaign to get people to take their children to church? Wait this is the 1950s right? Didn’t everyone go to church in the 1950s?

According to his biographer (Norman Rockwell: A Life, by Laura Claridge, Random House, New York, 2001), Rockwell lived a life much more like his cover illustration than the text of the ad campaign. He was said to rarely make it to church on Sunday during his first marriage (to a Catholic woman he later divorced) or during his second marriage (to a woman of his own Episcopalian affiliation). Rockwell did have his children baptized from the second marriage but was not a regular at church services otherwise.

In itself this may come as a shock to those who view Rockwell as the visual soul of conservative, small town, religious America. As “Sunday Morning” indicates Rockwell was not shy about pointing out the realities of American religious life even in the 1950s. Take special notice of the father’s unusual morning-bed hair-style and the color of his robe. When one realizes from his biographer that Rockwell may have spent many similar Sundays in his pajamas it is more difficult to typecast the illustrator into some of his other more famous and pious illustrations regarding religion.

It is likely that the family in the illustration is Protestant. Thus, it is not the case that Rockwell was making any comment about Catholicism in this work. But the fact that it made it on to the cover of America’s magazine of record at the time indicates that it resonated with the culture of this period. This issue of the Post was published at a time when weekly Catholic Mass attendance was peaking, as measured in Gallup telephone surveys (74% in 1958 and 72% in 1959). In 2008, Gallup surveys estimated Catholic Mass attendance in any given week had fallen to 42%. Don’t giggle. I know you don’t believe that 42% of Catholics nationally attend Mass in any given week and you’re right. But why do we believe 74% did in 1958?

I am sure there will be some reading this who says, “I remember, I was there.” But what we did see in the 1950s is not important. It is what we did not see… the people who were not in the pews. You can only get an attendance percentage by dividing the Mass attendance count (numerator) by the number of self-identified Catholics in the parish boundaries that could have attended (denominator). All of this is unlikely to be found in your memories! (Note: even Robert Putnam who notorious for highlighting the declining trend lines from the 1950s says the following in American Grace: “research on the accuracy of reporting church attendance… suggests that we should take these self-reports with a grain of salt,” pg. 571).

A piece of art is one thing. Perhaps more can be said by taking a second look at a researcher who was in many Catholic parishes studying Mass attendance in the 1950s. Joseph H. Fichter, S.J., (granduncle to current CARA research associate Fr. Stephen Fichter) famously studied parish life by going door to door and taking censuses, making Mass attendance head counts, observing parish life, and documenting everything possible both qualitatively and quantitatively.

In his 1954 study, Social Relations in the Urban Parish (University of Chicago Press), Fichter estimates Mass attendance levels based on the number of individuals registered with the parish. But he also provides the counts for what he calls “dormant Catholics” from his census within parish boundaries. These are people who self-identify their religion as Catholic but who do not attend Mass. Thirty-eight percent of the Catholics within the parish boundaries he studied in this book were dormant. Thus, at the outset we know that typical weekly attendance by the measure of this study could have been no more than 62%. But what about among the “active” Catholics? About 79% of the non-dormant Catholics attended Mass on a typical weekend. So overall, the total percentage of self-identifying Catholics attending Mass in this study was estimated to be about 49%.

This is almost exactly what we get in the early 1950s if we “correct” the Gallup trend numbers down for “over-reports” in each year by about 12 percentage points (Why 12 percentage points? See “The Nuances of Accurately Measuring Mass Attendance” and more recent research cited below). The figure below shows this correction for the entire Gallup series.

Attendance over-reports occur as people being interviewed over the phone respond to their interviewer with answers about their behavior that they believe to fit socially desirable expectations. So typically the respondent has just told the interviewer their religion and then they are asked how often they attend services. Many respond in a way that they believe is socially acceptable—even if it does not fit their actual pattern of attendance.

We have some early evidence of this in the Americans’ Use of Time Study, 1965-1966. Here, 57% of Americans when asked directly about their church attendance reported that they had attended in the last week. However, only 39% of these respondents actually indicated attending religious services when recording their time use hour by hour in diaries (i.e., an indirect measurement). For more on this see Philip Brenner’s excellent recent article “Identity Importance and the Overreporting of Religious Service Attendance” in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (March, 2011; pgs 103-115). Brenner not only estimates this phenomenon in the United States but in Europe as well, where this issue is less of a problem. These estimates are in “Exceptional Behavior or Exceptional Identity?” in Public Opinion Quarterly (Spring, 2011; pgs. 19-41). For example, in Italy (2003) time diaries estimate church attendance to be 25% weekly but surveys measure this at 30%. In Spain (2003) attendance is estimated at 16% in time diaries compared to 19% in surveys. In Ireland (2005) these numbers respectively are 42% (time diary) and 46% (survey-based). Here, Brenner also shows that from 1975 through 2008 the average annual over-report in U.S. religious attendance is very stable and much higher than in Europe, at an average of 13.4 percentage points.

In another of Father Fichter's 1950s studies, Southern Parish: The Dynamics of a City Church (Volume I, University of Chicago Press, 1951), he showed that there was also considerable variation in Mass attendance week to week (see figure below). This again is quite similar to some indirect measurements made now. Just as today, Lent brought more Catholics to Mass than during other periods of the year.

Joseph H. Fichter; Southern Parish: The Dynamics of a City Church; Volume I, University of Chicago Press, 1951, pg. 151.

Father Fichter’s observations also indicate that some of the Mass attendance of the 1950s was not as “active” as we might remember it. Here is a passage that likely still resonates with your observations of parish life today:

“A measure of the parishioners’ devotion to the Mass and of their fulfillment of this obligation is seen in the numbers who arrive late and who leave early. By actual count it was noted that, at all Sunday Masses, 8.37 per cent of the congregation arrived after Mass had started and that 6.35 per cent left before it was completed. … Although we have no accurate count, we have noticed that many of these persons are duplicated in both categories. In other words, those who come late also tend to leave early. … The younger males constitute the majority of those who omit part of the Mass, while older females make up the majority who arrive in church well in advance of Mass” (1951, pg. 138).

“By actual count, 35.08 per cent of the congregation read the missal all during Mass, while another 22.08 per cent read some sort of prayer-book while following the priest’s reading of the Gospel. … The remaining persons simply stare off into space, although several men in the last pews sometimes read a copy of Our Sunday Visitor during Mass” (1951, pg. 138).

Over a year of Masses, on average, attenders were much more often female (about 7 in 10 or more) than male—a composition that can only result from some men, perhaps like the man in the Rockwell illustration above, staying home.

Today, CARA’s national surveys use a methodology that minimizes social desirability pressure on respondents to get the most accurate measurements of Mass attendance possible. Many cite our weekly Mass attendance figure in the low 20 percent range. Some also then cite Gallup’s figure from the 1950s and attempt to argue that Mass attendance has fallen from nearly 80% to just above 20%. This is misleading and inaccurate. First, as shown above, the Gallup numbers for the 1950s are inflated by over-reports just as they are in the 1970s or now. Second, CARA and most other survey-based estimates of Mass attendance measure general frequencies of attendance such as “every week” or “at least once a month.” Gallup’s church attendance question measures whether a respondent has attended in the last 7 days. Depending on the week in which this question is asked, one will get very different results. Thus, the best use of the Gallup data is in taking the average for the year in response to this question.

Currently, CARA surveys indicate that 23% of self-identified adult Catholics attend Mass every week. Yet, in any given average week, 31% of Catholics are attending (almost identical the “adjusted” 30% estimate from the Gallup trend). Note there is considerable local variation in Mass attendance levels with higher levels in the Midwest and lower in coastal urban areas). During Lent and Advent, Mass attendance increases into the mid-40 percent-range and on Christmas and Easter, an estimated 68% of Catholics attend.

Thus, if one is seeking to make a comparison of Mass attendance in the 1950s to now, the drop is not 80% to 20%. Instead it is from a peak of 62% in 1958 to about 31% now. This is still a remarkable decline. It means that the Mass attendance you see at Christmas and Easter is a lot like the attendance you might have seen in a typical week in the late-1950s. Yet, even then, as now, there is a significant number of Catholics like the father in Rockwell’s “Sunday Morning” who choose to do something else.

The slope of the Gallup declining trend is accurate. It’s the levels that are off. If you are going to use the Gallup data from the 1950s and make comparisons to CARA data in the 2000s and beyond you’ll need to adjust the Gallup trend (and our collective memory of the 1950s) down to reach reality. And this is of course is not just an artistic endeavor. As I have argued here I believe it to be statistically valid.

In Season: Millennials and Lent

2011-03-04T16:04:00.001-05:00

Millennial Catholics (born after 1981) have a bit of a mixed reputation. On one hand some say they are more inclined to be orthodox and traditional. On the other hand some ponder whether this is a lost generation. The reality is much more complex and most often somewhere in between these notions.

It is the case that Millennial Catholics are less likely to attend Mass frequently and receive sacraments than their parents and grandparents. Their attitudes are not always consistent with Church teachings. Yet as Lent begins next week, Millennials will in some ways be among the most active Catholics this season.

A 2008 CARA Catholic Poll (CCP) includes a series of questions on Lenten devotions and practices. We were surprised to find that this is one area of the faith where there is little if any generational variation. Almost any other question you ask of Catholics does include significant differences. Lent is different.

More than one in four Millennials (27%) will receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, abstain from meat on Fridays, abstain from something else (in addition to meat on Fridays), and make extra efforts to help the needy or improve themselves. Fewer Catholics in all other generations will do all four of these things (see the green bars in the figure below).

This differences above may be linked to the messages that young Catholics have received in recent years about Lent as they begin to develop the practices and habits they will likely hold throughout life. For example, many young Catholics now participate in service projects to help the poor in the United States and elsewhere during Lent and/or Spring Break in both high school and college. In some Catholic schools this has become a requirement.

As for other Lenten devotions and practices my hunch is that this is simply a period where Catholic identity is strongly reinforced. Next Wednesday if you are Catholic and there are no ashes on your forehead what are you saying to the local Catholic community or your family? Few if any one in the community may notice if you miss Mass but they will easily notice if you have not been to Ash Wednesday services next week.

Also, Lent provides the opportunity for people to share their activities with others. Just the simple discussion of what one is giving up and the challenge that this creates provides something interesting to consider and talk about (perhaps even in a tweet). Not to mention Lent literally changes the menu. Is there any other time of the year McDonald's puts a poster of a Double Filet-o-fish in the window or Taco Bell starts making tacos with shrimp for a few weeks? As every professor knows the number one draw for any student activity is food. When there is a culinary element it automatically becomes more interesting.

There may be something of an effect from the Lenten messages provided by leadership as well. The image below is a Wordle created with the messages for Lent from John Paul II and Benedict XVI during the last decade (2002-2011). Wordle is a simple Linguistic tool that counts the frequency of use of words in text. It displays the most frequently used words as largest in size and places these randomly in a portrait. It’s part art and part context analysis.

Above one can see many of the words one would think to be often used (e.g., God, Jesus, Christ, life, love, and Lent). Yet also somewhat prominent are: justice, almsgiving, fasting, community, poor, poverty, and charity. I think Millennials have heard the message—perhaps even more than their parents and grandparents. Not only have they heard it but are a bit more likely than these older Catholics to fully live this out during Lent.

Is there any Catholic Left in “Lapsed" Catholics?

2011-03-03T13:23:00.012-05:00

At a recent Fordham conference, “Lost? Twenty-Somethings and the Church,” Robert Putnam argued the following:

“Roughly two-thirds of people raised as Catholics in America are no longer practicing Catholics. One third of them are still devout practicing Catholics. One-third no longer call themselves Catholics. One-third of them still call themselves Catholics but I believe are really not involved in the Church. They may be in some inspirational sense Catholic, maybe their views, but they are not at all involved with the Catholic Church.”

This reflects the results presented in American Grace (e.g., Figure 5.1 on page 138). The first third Putnam refers to are “devout” Catholics who attend Mass with some regularity. The second third are the former Catholics that have now "switched" out. This group has been documented in recent years in several other larger studies (e.g., Pew and ARIS). These people, although raised Catholic are no longer Catholic and are either affiliated with another religion or are Nones (i.e., those without affiliation).

The final third is a sub-group that Putnam defines and labels as “nominal” or “lapsed” Catholics who attend Mass only a few times a year or less often. Putnam argued at the symposium that this final third is “Catholic but in name only” and “psychologically very secular” even though they still call themselves Catholic. As Putnam and Campbell note in Amazing Grace, “we take into account not only what religious affiliation a person claims, but also whether he or she is religiously observant” (p. 137) and on this basis they have sub-divided self-identified Catholics into devout and lapsed.

I have noted concern about the accuracy of Putnam’s Faith Matters survey data in comparison to other sources elsewhere. With his comments cited above I also am worried that the limitations of his data may be leading him further astray on this topic. The Faith Matters survey does not include a significant number of interviews with many specific religious groups or sub-groups for reliable measurement nor are the questions used of a specific nature (wording, context, and content specific to different faiths) to actually validly measure how “observant” one is in their faith (the book nor associated website does not list the number of interviews with important sub-groups of the sample or margins of sampling error for these sub-groups).

Putnam appears to believe that Catholics who do not attend Mass regularly have ceased being Catholic in any sense other than simply using an identity label. These people are seemingly characterized as having left the specific beliefs and practices of their faith behind and now some generically just believe in a Judeo-Christian God and perhaps sometimes continue the traditions of attending services at Christmas and Easter periodically out of habit and conformity in the same way they might ritually put up a Christmas tree and hide Easter eggs for their children.

However, I think Putnam’s lack of background in the study of religion (and of Catholicism specifically) has left him with an unfortunate blind spot and his data are too insufficient to uncover this. Putnam, is a political scientist who has spent most of his career studying political culture in democratic societies. Little if any of his work has been focused on sociology of religion and his survey of more than 3,000 Americans does not provide sufficient insight (nor sample size) to speak to some of the intricate realities of what Catholics (and more so those of even smaller religious groups) believe or how they worship (nor does his case studies in parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago. … at one point in his remarks at the symposium Putnam awkwardly attempts to bolster his arguments by noting “I am quoting a senior official of the Chicago Archdiocese”). To fully understand the rich portrait of Americans of a specific faith one needs more than 3,000 interviews (e.g., recent surveys by Pew and ARIS include more than 35,000 each; see links above). And you certainly need to visit more than a few parishes in Chicago to say you’ve done any case studies that could create representative “vignettes.”

Let me be clear. I am not arguing that the “third” of those raised Catholic which Putnam calls “nominal” or “lapsed” Catholics are doing just fine. They are not. Catholics have an obligation to attend Mass weekly if they are physically able to attend and a Mass is available to them (not to mention other obligations). However, I think it is a gross misstatement to consider these Catholics “secular” or even generically Christian without a specific connection to the Church.

CARA has conducted more than 20 CARA Catholic Polls (CCP) since 2000. We now have in-depth interviews with more than 23,000 self-identified adult Catholics nationally. We have always found this group of infrequent or rare Mass attenders to be more than Catholics “in name only.” Instead on closer examination they seem still well “within reach” of the Church and are no lost cause nor as Putnam loves to say “on their way out the door.”

To begin let me be timely and topical (using data from CARA’s Sacraments Today poll from 2008—collected two years after the Faith Matters survey). Our survey results indicate that next week, more than four in ten of Putnam’s “lapsed” Catholics (represented by the orange bars in the figures below) will likely begin abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent. Nearly half have a statue or portrait of Mary in their home. Nearly one in four of these “nominal” Catholics are actually registered with a local Catholic parish. More than one in four wears or carries a cross or crucifix.

It is absolutely true that Catholics attending Mass at least weekly (represented by the blue bars) are much more likely to do each of these things. However, it’s hard to sweepingly call a subset of Catholics members of their faith “in name only” when some are likely to be eating a fish dinner next Friday, while wearing a cross, with a portrait of Mary hanging on the wall behind them (perhaps even reading their diocesan newspaper... as a parish registrant).

It is also the case that many of Putnam’s “lapsed” Catholics express religious beliefs that are central to the Catholic faith (i.e., Creed beliefs). More than seven in ten have absolutely no doubt in the Holy Trinity and nearly two-thirds similarly have no doubt in Mary’s immaculate conception. Four in ten express a belief in the Real Presence.

Even though a minority expresses a belief in the Real Presence, more than seven in ten infrequent Mass attenders say they find the Eucharist to be a Catholic sacrament that is personally meaningful to them (“somewhat” or “very much”). Even more of these Catholics find the sacraments of Baptism and Marriage to be personally meaningful. These three sacraments are the most widely celebrated by American Catholics, and regardless of Mass attendance we find that most who call themselves Catholic today find them to be personally meaningful. This is no generic Christianity and certainly not secularism.

If Putnam’s nominal Catholics did have “one foot out the door” why would so many say they are “proud to be Catholic”? Two thirds of this group agrees “somewhat” or “strongly” with this statement. Among Catholics this pride extends to the almost universal practice of baptizing their children in the faith and significant majorities of Putnam’s lapsed Catholics who are parents say it is important to them that their children celebrate their First Communion and receive the sacrament of Confirmation. It looks like they might need to step back through the parish door soon?

Again, I am not arguing infrequent Mass attenders are “good Catholics.” The data cited above cannot and do not establish this. They simply indicate that the glass is not empty. We can argue if it is half full or half empty but we must recognize that there is still something “Catholic” there with this group that goes beyond a label.

This is just a sample of the evidence we have in CARA’s CCPs on this topic (more is available here: Sacraments Today) but it is certainly sufficient to indicate that there is a more complex portrait of infrequent Catholic Mass attenders than the one imagined in Putnam’s simple caricature of “Catholics in name only.” You just won’t find it in the Faith Matters survey nor in American Grace.

Notes:

1. The CARA CCP results presented here do not separate out non-Hispanic white Catholics from those who self-identify their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino(a). In his comments at the conference, Putnam notes that he is mostly speaking about "Anglo" Catholics because the Faith Matters survey indicates Hispanic Catholics "are more observant, more loyal, and more orthodox" and thus unlikely to be in the "lapsed" group. For comparison I ran the CARA data only on non-Hispanic white Catholics who attend Mass a few times a year or less often as well and there are only slight differences with two exceptions. For example, among non-Hispanic white Catholics rarely attending, 39% are registered with a parish, 39% abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent, 68% express belief without doubt in the Holy Trinity, 39% express belief in the Real Presence, etc. The exceptions are among parents in this group where only 54% say it is important that their children celebrate their First Communion and 49% say the same about Confirmation).

2. In the Church's eye's a person baptized Catholic is Catholic (as long as they do not formally renounce their faith or are in a state of excommunication... yet even then their baptism cannot be "removed"). However, the standard in the social sciences is to treat religious self-identification as the indicator of affiliation or membership.

Photo courtesy of totalAldo at Flickr Creative Commons.

Family Pets and Fertility?

2011-02-21T20:58:00.009-05:00

I was traveling last week and as I waited to board a plane a woman answered the first call for those with small children or others needing assistance. She passed me with a pink stroller. As I looked in the stroller to see the baby’s smile I saw… a dog! A cute dog but nonetheless not what I expected. She checked the stroller and as I boarded the plane I saw it on the entry ramp to the plane with a small label that clearly read “for dogs only.” That was my second surprise. They make strollers especially for dogs? You might be surprised what they make for dogs (see above)! Virtually anything you can buy for a child you can now buy for a dog… strollers, diapers, Halloween costumes, Snuggies… (In fact it is estimated that Americans spent $47,700,000,000 on their pets in 2010. That is similar to the total size of the U.S. Department of Education budget in the same year or the annual total gross domestic product of Belarus. Another aspect of the growing pet economy is an increase in the number of people leaving parts of their estates to their pets).

On the plane as I was reading the “news” this quote from Elisabetta Canalis, Italian girlfriend of actor George Clooney, caught my eye: "Getting pregnant has never been an objective for me. My maternal desires are fully satisfied with my dogs." OK that’s too much of a coincidence not to be a blog post… (and I’m not the only one to have had this thought… ). I’ve come to learn that people like Ms. Canalis are known as “pet parents”—people who treat their pets the same way they would a human child. In fact if you want to start looking for gifts now National Pet Parent’s Day is celebrated each year on the last Sunday of April (April 24 in 2011, or on the Church calendar, Easter Sunday).

You want to do some social science of your own on this topic? Here is a simple experiment. Go to your local grocery store. Compare the baby aisle to the pet isle. Is the pet aisle bigger? I would not be surprised. Why? It turns out there are now more pets than children in the United States. Need more evidence? There are 8.6 million photographs on Flickr with the tag “dog” and only 8.5 million tagged as “baby.”

To explore further, I searched the iPoll archives and found a number of questions about pets. In surveys from 1947 to 1985 fewer than half of Americans reported having a pet (sometimes more specifically phrased more narrowly as a “dog or cat”). And then something happened in the 1990s. A majority of Americans became pet owners. Specifically dog ownership increased from about one in four to a third during the 1947 to 1985 period to more than four in ten since the mid-1990s. Could this increase in pet ownership be affecting fertility rates? Or more likely, could this increase in pet ownership be a result of declining fertility rates and the desire of Americans to have a parental connection to something?

The literature on Catholic fertility rates is substantial. One of my favorite pieces comes from Sister Leo Marie, O.P. published the 1944 article “Is the Catholic Birth Rate Declining?” in The American Catholic Sociological Review. Here she writes, “It has been the observation of many priests and teachers in the area studied that certain elements, such as birth control and mixed marriages, have weakened Catholicism in this region [mid-south] and have helped to bring about religious indifference and carelessness” (p. 177). Remember this is 1944! Yet it sounds like something you might have heard in a blog rant in 2004. In this article she finds that “the proportion of large families has declined appreciably and that of small families has increased” (p. 181). She concludes that “Only a superficial analysis is required to show that the main causes of the present declining birth rate are urban culture, the weakening of the moral and religious fiber of people, and the economic structure of present day society” (p. 183).

Unfortunately for Sr. Leo Marie this article was written just before one of the most extraordinary increases in Catholic (and non-Catholic) fertility in the history of the United States—the Baby Boom. So much for the effects of urban culture and the weakening of moral and religious fiber! (This should also serve as a lesson to those who believe the 1950s and 1960s were the “norm” for Catholic fertility. These were not. Catholic fertility was significantly lower in the 1930s and 1940s—severely affected by both economic depression and war well before the availability of the pill or abortion). Between 1956 and 1965 the Catholic marital fertility rate was approximately 4.3 children (see Westoff, Charles F. and Elise F. Jones “The End of ‘Catholic’ Fertility” in Demography, v.16 pp. 209-217). From 1966 to 1970 this dropped to 2.8 and from 1971 to 1975 down to 2.3 per woman. These fertility rates were significantly higher than non-Catholics even as they also experienced a significant jump in fertility between 1956 and 1965.

The decline in fertility and increase in pet ownership are indeed correlated yet there is certainly no evidence of direct causation in either direction. Today the American fertility rate is just above 2.0 at or near “replacement” level. However, this is primarily due to the high fertility rates of immigrants—many of who self-identify their religion as Catholic. The more relevant question is if pet ownership among Catholic today related to fertility? Below, I look to a 2008-09 American National Election Study (ANES) panel survey for some answers. I must note that this survey uses a sample that excludes non-citizens—as they are legally ineligible to vote. Thus, it is not a perfect representation of the Catholic (and non-Catholic) adult population. But it is as good a source that is available as polling about pet ownership is not necessarily a hot topic.

Overall, three in four Catholics (74%) report in the 2008 ANES study that they have a pet in their household (Take note that only 75% of all Catholic adults in the most recent General Social Survey indicate that they have ever had a child). This is significantly higher than historical rates of pet ownership measured in Gallup and other news surveys in recent decades. Other Americans with a religious affiliation are slightly less likely than Catholics to own a pet (67%). Catholic pet ownership rates are identical to those of Americans without any religious affiliation (i.e., the Nones).

Catholics clearly prefer dogs to cats or any other type of pet. About half of all Catholics (49%) have a dog in their household and nearly a third has a cat (32%). Fish (12%), reptiles (5%), and birds (4%) are also relatively popular selections. If you want a pony you better hope that your parents are not Catholic as only 1% say they own some type of horse.

By comparison, Nones are much more likely to be “cat people.” Some 47% of those without a religious affiliation have a cat in their household compared to 32% of Catholics, 35% of Protestants, and only 25% of those of other religious affiliations. Also interesting is that Protestants are only half as likely as Catholics to own a reptile.

Are Catholic pet owners less likely to have larger families than Catholics who do not own pets? Here we are up against the limits of the questions asked in the ANES survey. As a proxy we only have total household size which is a fairly good proxy.

The results? Hypotheses rejected! Catholics with pets do not have smaller families than those without pets. On average, the household size of Catholics with dogs is 3.4 compared to a 3.2 person household size for all Catholics. Add cats to the equation and Catholic pet owners still have larger households. It appears that pets come along with children rather than the other way around.

Thus, if you are looking for scapegoats for declining Catholic fertility don’t look to the family dog (or other pets)... yet. More often than not a family dog is associated with larger Catholic households. I’m still not sure if they need strollers, a Snuggie, or a large place in any will, but I can report that there is little evidence in current data that openness to pet ownership among Catholics is replacing openness to children.

[...for full disclosure I must note that where pets are considered CARA is a dog office.]

Jersey Census by County and Diocese

2011-02-14T13:43:00.004-05:00

The release of Census 2010 data is underway. Most of these data will be released throughout this year and next. County-level data for a few states were released in recent weeks. County-level totals are required to aggregate Census results by Catholic diocese. CARA will be crunching the numbers as they come in. As an example, we show some county-level data for the dioceses in New Jersey below.

Overall, the population of New Jersey grew 4.5% from 2000 to 2010 (8.4 to 8.8 million) while the growth of people self-identifying their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino(a) increased by 39.2% (1.1 million to 1.55 million). Without growth in this population group, New Jersey would not have grown at all in the last decade and in fact would likely have experienced population loss.

Growth in the Hispanic/Latino(a) population has implications for the Church as the majority of this population in the United States self-identifies as Catholic (more than 60%). This growth is important in New Jersey where already about 42% of the total population is estimated to self-identify as Catholic in recent telephone surveys.

In the dioceses of Trenton (67%), Camden (55%), and Metuchen (52%) the Hispanic/Latino(a) population grew by more than 50% in the last decade.

Still the largest numbers of individuals self-identifying as Hispanic/Latino(a) reside elsewhere in the state. More than 64% of all those identifying as Hispanic/Latino(a) live in the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Paterson where growth was slower (29% and 34%, respectively).

In reports to The Official Catholic Directory, the dioceses of the state of New Jersey collectively estimate growth in the number of Catholics from 2000 to 2010 to be 287,501 (8.6%). This percentage may be slightly underestimated given Census totals and specifically growth in the overall Hispanic/Latino(a) population.

As the Census data come in, CARA will continue to release interesting results by diocese here. Specific reports by diocese and indicator can be ordered by contacting Mark Gray at 202-687-0885 or mmg34@georgetown.edu.

The Changing Jesuit Geography

2011-02-01T15:47:00.000-05:00

It is Jesuit Heritage Week here at Georgetown. Below are results of some of the most up-to-date research on global changes within the the Society of Jesus. This research was conducted by CARA Executive Director Thomas P. Gaunt, SJ, Ph.D. and presented at the annual conference of the Religious Research Association, October 30, 2010, in Baltimore, MD.

The Jesuits are the single largest Religious Congregation of priests and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church and they work in almost every country of the world. The primary ministry of Jesuits is education, on both the secondary and university levels. Well established and well respected Jesuit schools have existed in Europe and the Americas for centuries. During the latter half of the 20th Century an extensive network of “popular education” schools were initiated by Jesuits particularly in Latin America and South Asia. The choice of ministries and the manner in which they are carried out has a great influence in the Catholic Church throughout the world.

During the past 100 years membership in the Society of Jesus has steadily grown and steadily dropped. In 1910 there were 16,295 Jesuits worldwide and in 2010 there are 18,266. The number of Jesuits steadily increased year by year from 1910 until it peaked in 1965 at 36,038 Jesuits. Since 1965 there is a steady decline each year resulting in about half the number of Jesuits as there was 45 years ago.

Yet the figure above masks some of the dramatic changes in membership by geography and age that have occurred in the past 30 or more years.

For administrative purposes the provinces of the Society of Jesus are organized under six geographic regions:

Africa – all of Africa and Madagascar except North Africa,
Latin America – all of South America, Central America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean,
South Asia – India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka,
East Asia – Australia, Philippines, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, China, Thailand, and Myanmar,
Europe – Europe, Russia, the Middle East, North Africa, Canada
United States – USA, Jamaica, Belize, and Micronesia.

When the total number of Jesuits by geographic region is examined it is clear that the steep decline in the number of Jesuits in Europe and the USA dwarfs the steady growth of the Jesuits in South Asia and Africa. The Jesuits of East Asia and Latin America have declined but to a much lesser extent.

In 1982, Africa and South Asia had 16.4% of the Jesuit membership and Europe and the USA had 62.9%, yet by 2010 Africa and South Asia had grown to 30% and Europe and the USA had declined to 46.2%.

Over the course of the past 28 years the smallest annual decline in Jesuits worldwide was 167 in 1986 and the largest decline of 401 was in 2007. This is in sharp contrast to the declines of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s that saw declines between 811 to 1,037 each year (unfortunately geographic distribution data are unavailable for those years).

Another way to examine membership in the Society of Jesus is to look at it in terms of the historically large regions of Europe and the USA in comparison to the smaller and newer regions of Africa, Latin America, South Asia and East Asia. In this view one sees a dramatic change in the membership of the Jesuits since 1982. Beginning in 2005 the majority of Jesuits is now in the developing world and will increasingly be from outside of Europe and the USA.

These changes in the membership of the Jesuits are driven by three factors: the number of men entering, the number of men departing, and the number of men dying each year. And these three factors are not consistent across geography, at least for the past 30 years.

Entering Jesuits
In 1982, there were 583 men entering Jesuit novitiates around the world and 28 years later in 2010 there were 470 men entering the novitiates. Over this period of time the largest number entered in 1985 (660 men) and the fewest in 2009 (453 men).

The changes in the number of men entering the novitiate differed greatly by geography as shown in the table below. A drop of more than 50% is seen in Europe and the USA versus the relative stability or growth in South Asia, East Asia and Africa.

When these changes in the number and distribution of entering Jesuits is graphed according to those from the “developed world” (Europe and USA) versus those from the “developing world” (Africa, Latin America, South Asia and East Asia) the ever widening gap is clearly evident as the “developing world” entering Jesuits grows from just over one-half to nearly three-quarters of all new Jesuits.

Dismissed Jesuits
The number of men leaving the Jesuits over the past three decades also varies by year and geography yet it fairly closely follows the pattern of proportional changes as Entering Jesuits. In the second figure below we also see that the proportion of Jesuits leaving the Society from the “developing world” goes from about 45% to nearly 75%.

Jesuit Deaths
The number of Jesuits that died in 1982 (423 deaths) and in 2010 (428 deaths) are almost the same yet there are about a third fewer Jesuits worldwide (26,298 versus 18,266). The figure below shows the number of Jesuit deaths peaking in the early and mid 1990’s and beginning to decline over the past seven years.

The geographic distribution of deaths has not shifted as much as the proportion of entering Jesuits over the last three decades. The “developed world” Jesuit deaths have gone from about 70% to 64% of the total. This can be explained by the large number of older Jesuits (70+ years of age) in Europe and the USA as compared to the “developing world.”

Cumulative Effects
The figures below show the proportional changes over time in entrance, dismissal and death for the “developed world” and “developing world.” This results in four observations:

The proportion of men entering the Jesuits has steadily increased in the developing world while the proportion from the developed world has steadily decreased.
The two lines representing the proportion of men entering and departing the Jesuits are narrowing and beginning to run together as time has passed in both the developed world and developing world. The proportion of men persevering in the Jesuits has become more and more similar across the world over the past three decades.
The proportionate number of deaths has changed very little over the years geographically.
Whereas the proportion of total Jesuits in each area of the world has steadily increased in the developing regions and decreased in the developed regions.

The proportion of men entering the Jesuits between the developed and developing regions of the world “appears” to be leveling out with about 75% from the developing countries and 25% from the developed countries. Once this occurs it will be the proportion of deaths that will continue to change over the next two decades as the age distribution, skewed by the large number of men entering in the developed countries post World War II, passes on.

The figure below shows the average age for Scholastics (those Jesuits in formation preparing for ordination), Priests, and for all members in 2010. The current “youthfulness” of the developing regions of the world is evident as Africa and South Asia have an average age of less than 50 in contrast to the average age of 65 for Europe and the USA.

Over the course of 30 years the Society of Jesus worldwide will have “flipped” in its geographic composition from two-third / one-third division of developed to developing world, to the reverse. Added to this is the great change in age distribution across the Society which is resulting in a rapid shift from a more European/USA Vatican II perspective to a more Indian/African post-Vatican II perspective. The change is both in generation and in geography which may be more creative and/or disruptive than might be assumed.

Something about the Name Mary?

2011-01-20T10:42:00.008-05:00

Pope Benedict XVI recently encouraged Catholic parents to consider a Christian name (e.g., biblical or saint name) for their children. The Social Security Administration maintains a website that tracks the names given to children in America. The most recent listings for the top boy and girl names show that Americans still tend to give children biblical or saint names. However, there are exceptions in the top ten such as Jayden for boys (#8) and Madison (#7) for girls. The top name for boys in 2009 was Jacob and for girls it was Isabella.

Where is Mary? Not in the top ten. From 1910 to 1965 Mary was either the #1 or #2 name for girls in the U.S. In 2009, this name dropped out of the top 100 for the first time (currently #102). By comparison, Joseph has remained consistently popular. Although at #16 in 2009 this is the lowest rank for Joseph since 1910.

The names of Gospel authors have historically been popular boy names but there is considerable variation over time. The most consistently popular name has been John which was in the top ten from 1910 to 1972. Currently John is ranked #26. At the same time John exited the top ten Matthew entered the most popular group. Currently Matthew is just outside the top 10 at #13.

Just as Mary has become harder to find, Mark has also fallen out of favor. Mark was a top ten name from 1955 to 1970 but fell out of the top 100 in 2003 (currently #154). Luke has had the biggest rise in popularity since 1910 and it's not just a "Star Wars" effect. In 1950 Luke was the #511 boys name. It rose to #222 in 1976 (a year before the release of Star Wars). Luke entered the top 100 in 1993 and has remained there since (#48 in 2009).

For more on names, and specifically names given by Catholic parents, see "Don't Call Me Ishmael" by CARA researchers Paul Perl and Jon Wiggins in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Here they found, "worship attendance does increase Catholics' likelihood of choosing specific names that are disproportionately common within their tradition. This suggests that committed Catholics perceive certain names as 'Catholic' and represents one instance in which names do retain religious connotations for believers. We are aware of no previous research that has established such a link between parental religious commitment and naming" (p. 209). They estimate that 50% of females named Mary (or Marie, Marion, Maria, Maryann, etc.) in the United States were raised Catholic (p.221). Females with the following names were least likely to have been raised Catholic: Tamara or Tammy (14%), Shirley or Shirlene (15%), Bonnie (16%), Brenda (16%), and Joyce (18%) (p.222).

Notes on Recent Research Regarding Catholicism in the U.S.

2011-01-14T14:51:00.007-05:00

Graceful Outlier?
One aspect of Putnam and Campbell's American Grace that is making the rounds of Catholic news and commentary follows this line of argument from the book:

"Over the last few decades, large numbers of 'Anglo'—that is, non-Latino—Catholics have been dropping out of or disengaging with the Catholic Church, without being replaced by other Anglo converts" (p. 17)."
"The Catholic fraction of the U.S. population has held steady only because the departing grandchildren of white ethnic immigrants of the first decades of the twentieth century have been roughly balanced by arriving Latino Catholics" (p. 160).

A key piece of evidence to support this claim comes from Putnam and Campbell's Faith Matters survey. This poll was completed in two waves, the first in 2006 with a follow-up with a portion of the original respondents in 2007. The survey has a very good response rate of 53% and included 3,108 interviews in the first wave. Although I have seen many, including Putnam himself, speak to the groundbreaking nature of this poll there really are multiple recent and historical surveys out there on religion in America with more than ten times the number of interviews. For example there is the cross-sectional study from Pew (Religious Landscape with 35,000+ interviews; followed by Faith and Flux) and time-series from ARIS in 1990, 2001 and 2008 (at 50,000+ interviews per survey). Also, the General Social Survey (GSS) includes an expanisve time series of religious questions asked of more than 53,000 Americans spanning 1973 to 2008. Putnam and Campbell wisely often rely on some these other data sources throughout their book... that is most of the time (see below).

Why does the number of interviews matter? Margin of sampling error. Putnam and Campbell do not provide topline data for the survey in the book or on the American Grace website. Copies of the questionnaire are available online along with a promise: "At some point, as of yet unspecified, the actual data will be released into the public domain for other scholars to analyze these." Thus, I don't know how many interviews they conducted with Catholics. But I can guess. If it is consistent with other recent surveys, about 25% of respondents should have self-identified as Catholic totaling about 777 interviews. The margin of sampling error for 777 Catholics is a respectable +/-3.5 percentage points. However, only 35% of these 777 interviews were conducted with Catholics who self-identify their ethnicity as Latino or Hispanic. That means the Faith Matters survey probably includes something like 272 interviews with Latino Catholics. Here the margin of error extends to a less desirable and precise +/-5.9 percentage points. Given these relatively small number of interviews with Latino Catholics it surprises me that the American Grace authors makes so much of the following (in their own words):

"While the overall retention rate of Catholics is 63 percent [in the Faith Matters survey], among Catholics there is a big gap between Anglos and Latinos: 57 percent vs. 78 percent, respectively. … In short, the future of the U.S. Catholic Church is largely a Latino future, because just as white ethnic Catholics have rushed out one door of the Church, they have been replaced by new Latinos rushing in the other door" (p. 301)

Really? Although I do believe the "Latino future" part of this statement (mostly by other means) I don't buy the precision of the data cited nor the unfortunate "white flight" impression they have made with it (this is more a function of immigration, differences in fertility, and generational replacement). Why? This is the one case where Putnam and Campbell disregard all other available data.

The figure below includes Catholic retention rates overall (green diamonds) and more specifically for white/non-Hispanic white Catholics (orange dots) that are found in the General Social Survey 1973-2008, the CARA Catholic Poll (CCP) 2003, and the Pew Religious Landscape Survey 2007. Note some of these studies were done after Putnam and Campbell's Faith Matters survey. The results for the GSS, CARA, and Pew studies are all within the margin of sampling error and consistently sit along the regression line. This represents an independent and triangulated result. The Faith Matters data for Catholics overall and for non-Hispanic Catholics is a notable outlier.

I can find no other study that replicates/confirms the Faith Matters survey estimate of 63% retention among all Catholics and with the enormous 21 percentage point gap in retention between Hispanic (78%) and non-Hispanic white Catholics (57%).

In the 2008 GSS, the overall estimate for the Catholic retention rate is 70% with a gap of 7 percentage points between Hispanic (75%) and non-Hispanic White Catholics (68%). In the 2007 Pew Religious Landscape Survey, the overall estimate for the Catholic retention rate is 68% with a gap of 6 percentage points between Hispanic (73%) and non-Hispanic White Catholics (67%).

The ethnic gap implied by the Faith Matters survey is exaggerated in comparison to other data sources. It is the case that non-Hispanic white Catholics are declining as a percentage of the overall Catholic population as other segments grow more strongly (through immigration and higher fertility). However, the non-Hispanic white Catholic population continues to grow in absolute numbers and is perhaps only marginally more likely to leave the faith than are Hispanics Catholics. My hunch is that the difference in retention between Hispanic and non-Hispanic white Catholics of 6 to 7 percentage points is related to immigration. Foreign-born Catholics who were raised in a society without the religious pluralism and diversity of the United States may be less likely than those who are born in the U.S. to change their religion even after immigrating here. That may not be the case for the children and grandchildren of immigrant Catholics.

I am not implying that the Faith Matters survey is poorly done. However, there may be issues with the sample beyond the control of the researchers. Even a well done study, as the Faith Matters survey appears to be, can suffer from a sample distortion just by random chance. This is why you often see the phrase "95 percent confidence interval" right after the reporting of margin of sampling error. Once in a while, the sample is just off the mark. Given the comparison of results above I believe this is a possibility for Catholic retention rates.

American Grace is a solid book but it is not the masterpiece that Putnam's Bowling Alone was (one of my favorite books of all time). I don't know many sociologists of religion who would be surprised by much of the findings in American Grace. But then again Putnam is not a sociologist. He is a political scientist (like myself) and this is a field that has too often taken religion for granted. He deserves much credit for taking this topic on and making this research accessible to social scientists and the general public. When he wrote Bowling Alone he did so in a climate where political scientists were increasingly using economic models and arguments that limited or ignored the role of culture. Putnam, even though he still had his critics, made an effective case that culture matters. In American Grace he has effectively made the case that religion matters as well.

More On Catholic Population Growth

In a recent post, we estimated that the Catholic population will likely top 100 million by 2050 and may reach as high as 128 million by that point. We are not the only researchers making this claim. A team of three demographic researchers has published similar estimates in "Secularism, Fundamentalism, or Catholicism? The Religious Composition of the United States to 2043" in the June 2010 issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

The first line in this article should be read by anyone who thinks retention and conversion rates tell the whole story of religious change and population growth or decline. Skirbekk et al. note, "Sociologists of religion typically focus on the attractiveness of denominations in the religious marketplace. Yet the main source of religious recruits is the children of communicants" (p. 293).

Most Catholics join the Church as infants. And Catholicism keeps more of these children in the faith than other Christian denominations as they become adults. Factoring in immigration and fertility differences, the authors conclude that "Catholics in the youngest age cohorts will outnumber their Protestant counterparts by 2043 and take over some time in the second half of the 21st century" (p. 303).

While I had predicted the upper limit of Catholic population growth would lead to Catholics being about 29% of the population in 2050, Skirbekk et al. expect Catholics to be 32% of the population by 2043 and their upper range estimate for the Catholic population in this year exceeds 160 million (their lowest estimate tops 100 million).

Another interesting note in the article is related to the Nones. These are Americans who have no religious affiliation (including agnostics and atheists). This currently is a growing segment of the U.S. population. However, the retention rates for Nones are a rather dismal 47%. Thus, most children raised without a religion end up adopting one later in life. Skirbekk et al. note an additional complication for additional growth of the Nones—they have fewer children than people with a religious affiliation. They note, "The relatively low fertility rate of secular Americans and the religiosity of the immigrant inflow provides a countervailing force that will cause the secularization process within the total population to plateau before 2043" (p. 308).

Year in Review with a Preview

2010-12-27T15:39:00.022-05:00

In this final post of 2010 I look back briefly at the year that has just passed and tease a bit of the new research results that are on the horizon.

2010 Review
Here are some statistical nuggets from this year in case you missed them:

The U.S. Catholic population continues to grow and is projected to exceed 100 million by 2050.
At the same time, the number of infant baptisms and marriages in the U.S. Catholic Church has declined in number each year since 2001. In 2009, there were 12.7 infant baptisms and 2.7 marriages in the Church per 1,000 Catholics. Although nearly all Catholic parents continue to baptize their children in the Church (as the birthrate declines) many Catholics are choosing to get married in non-Catholic houses of worship or secular settings.
Yet even as the recent trend in infant baptisms is down slightly, there are still enough people joining the Catholic Church each year to sustain the population. In 2009, The Official Catholic Directory reported 857,410 infant baptisms, 43,279 adult baptisms, and 75,724 receptions into full communion in U.S. dioceses. This totals 976,413 in one year. To put that in context, the number of new Catholics in 2009 would make this one-year cohort of new Catholics approximately the 26th largest membership Christian church in the United States.
The likelihood that a Catholic will marry a non-Catholic is strongly and directly related to the likelihood that a Catholic will be in close proximity to other Catholics. In dioceses where Catholics make up only 10% of the total population, the average percentage of interfaith marriages celebrated in parishes is 41%. By comparison, this average is only 16% where 40% or more of the total population in a diocese is Catholic.
On the institutional side, if the current trend in parish closures were to continue and current priest projections bear out, there will likely be only 12,520 active diocesan priests and 14,825 parishes in the United States by 2035 (also in OSV).
There has been no measurable decline or increase in Mass attendance percentages nationally in the last decade. Just under one in four Catholics attends Mass every week. About a third of Catholics attend in any given week and more than two-thirds attend Mass at Christmas, Easter, and on Ash Wednesday. More than four in ten self-identified adult Catholics attend Mass at least once a month.
A majority, 54%, of the adults of the Catholic Millennial Generation (those ages 18-28 in 2010) in the United States self-identify as Hispanic/Latino(a). In the late-2030s there will likely be more Catholics who self-identify as Hispanic/Latino overall than those who do not.
A minority of Americans of Irish ancestry self-identify their religion as Catholic. At the same time, the size of the Irish Catholic population has been stable in recent decades as Catholics of Italian, German, and Polish ancestry have declined a bit. The number of Catholics noting Mexican ancestry increased dramatically in the 2000s.
About 3.5 million U.S. residents self-identify their race as Black, African American, Afro-Caribbean, or African and their religion as Catholic. Of these Black Catholics, 42% also self-identified their ethnicity as Hispanic.
The number of Catholic senators declined from 25 to 24 (or is it 23?). [Pew corrected count]. Pew identifies 132 Catholic members of the House of Representatives (30.3%). Overall 29.2% of members of the 112th Congress are Catholic.
57% of adult Catholics did not vote in the 2010 elections.
The average tuition for the first child of Catholic parents attending a parish Catholic primary school for 2008-2009 was $3,383. For that same child the per-pupil cost of education for 2008-2009 was $5,436. This means that only 63% of this child’s per-pupil cost was covered by their tuition.
In the 20 years since Ex Corde Ecclesia, Catholic colleges and universities have seen an increase in student enrollment of 24%.
Many Catholic colleges are providing a “return on investment” for the tuitions paid. Yet there are mixed short-term effects for changes in Catholic beliefs and practice among those attending Catholic colleges with more consistently positive long-term effects evident as well.
13% of active Bishops in the United States were born outside of the U.S.
49.4% of the global Catholic population resides in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, in 2011 only 28.9% of the cardinal electors will be from this area of the world.
Note during the papal visit… there are more weekly church-going Catholics in Great Britain than there are weekly church-going Anglicans.
A majority of U.S. Protestants express a belief in the Real Presence and those who believe the Bible is to be taken literally word for word are most likely to do so.
22% of Nones in America (those without any religious affiliation) were raised Catholic.

2011 Preview
Coming next year… initial results from the first phase of the most comprehensive study of parish life in the United States in the last two decades are in. The study, conducted by CARA for the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership Project, has just completed its first phase of research—a single informant, random sample survey of pastors and other parish leaders in the United States. The second and third phases are underway.

One of the first results from the initial phase mirrors the effects of trends noted in other recent posts. With the combined net effects of a reduction in the number of parishes of -6.6% in the last decade and +8.4% growth in the Catholic population, the “mega-parish” is becoming more common. The number of U.S. parishes with more than 1,200 registered households has increased from 25% in 2000 to 33% of all parishes in 2010. The current average number of registered households in U.S. parishes is 1,167 (compared to 855 in 2000). Are these larger parishes the future? Are we super-sizing the Church?

The number of Masses per parish is on the rise as well, with parishes celebrating four or more Saturday Vigil or Sunday Masses increasing from 44% in 2000 to a majority, 51%, in 2010.

Some Recent Comments from the Gallery
Finally, it appears the recent posts on Catholic population growth and parish closures have inspired some reactions. One kindly suggest I might be being a bit of a cheerleader for the Church while another goes further and says he believes I am just “wrong-headed” and “pretending and minimizing.”

“[T]here are other views that see the statistics very differently and argue that the number of Catholics is about steady and even slightly growing. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) has a blog edited by Mark Gray which presents a more sanguine view of the situation,” said Msgr. Charles Pope from blog.adw.org
“Two of … [his] recent posts strike me as wrong-headed,” said Anthony Ruff, OSB from www.praytellblog.com. “My aim is to face up to the truth, no matter what it is, without pretending or minimizing.”

First, let me say CARA is an independent, non-profit, academic research center. This is my personal research blog as a CARA researcher. The data presented here often come from multiple and reliable sources outside of CARA and the Church in general. Previously as a journalist and now as a professor I take research, science, and objectivity very, very seriously. The data can speak for themselves. I have nothing to gain or lose based on how the results come out. I am Catholic but whether there are more or fewer Catholics or parishes in the United States next year or ten years from now will not alter my faith. I have no motivation to spin anything, and even if I had, I would not do so as a professional, committed, ethical scientist. I am not paid by any special interest and I am not a member of any organizations with a stake in the results (my only memberships to anything are to the American Political Science Association and my parish). I do not personally take part in any advocacy campaigns or activities. I am not registered to vote, make no contributions to anything other than church and charity, and have no affiliations with any political party or social movement (again… as you can see I take detached objectivity as a political scientist very seriously!).

I understand that sometimes the data reveal a reality that does not comfortably conform to our existing opinions and views. For example, I teach a social science research methods class at Georgetown. In the first meeting each semester I always ask the class if they believe we live in a more or less dangerous America now than say a decade ago or even three or four decades ago (and this is just the first of several similar examples like this used in the class…). Specifically I ask them if they believe Americans are at a greater risk of being a victim of a violent crime now than in the early 1970s. Invariably students agree that violent crime is much more likely now. We talk about the “good old days” when you could leave your door unlocked and your kids could walk to school safely. Then I show them this. That is the data, the reality, (multiple sources and multiple methods of collection) and it certainly bucks “conventional wisdom” (which unfortunately is too often not very “wise”). As a class we discuss why there is a perception of a greater threat and often news coverage and the level of violence seen in the media (mostly fictional violence in movies or video games) are put forth as important culprits in the creation of this specific “unreality.”

There are measurable doses of “unreality” in Church discourse these days. Much of it fashioned around anecdotes and agendas. My promise now and in the year ahead to readers of this blog is that you’ll find none of this unreality here.

Photo courtesy of jurvetson at Flickr Creative Commons.

Changes in Number of Parishes... and Congressional Seats?

2010-12-21T16:37:00.001-05:00

At CARA we are often called by reporters working on stories about parish closures. Almost always the reporter is looking for a quote or statistic that can confirm their assumption that the closure of a parish is a new sign of an imploding Catholic Church (it's a common narrative!).

We typically have to caution the reporter on jumping to conclusions based on a single anecdote and then ask a few questions ourselves. Is this parish in an urban area? Is it located in the Northeast or Midwest? Is there a priest shortage in the diocese? All these factors are more likely to be the root of the closure rather than the generalized impending doom in many reporters' heads. I've commented on why this narrative is so misleading elsewhere.

Here is a new correlation to ponder. Today the U.S. Census Bureau released results that will affect the apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives. The big winners? The South and West and especially Texas (picking up 4 seats). The losers? The Northeast and Midwest which have both become smaller population regions.

Here is a nice summary and map of these changes from the Boston Globe.

Compare the map linked above to the one below that represents changes at the state-level in the number of Catholic parishes from CARA researcher Mary Gautier:

Why is there such a strong resemblance? Do parish closures cause losses of House seats? Of course not. That would confuse correlation with causation. However, both have common roots: population shifts and changes. The biggest gainer in both parishes and House seats? Texas. On the other hand the greatest losses are seen in New York.