In this post we review some important marriage trends using CARA's Church Statistics database. While you may have heard that marriage is endangered and rare, most Catholics
will end up being married during their life. In the 1970s, 79% of adult
Catholics married at some point in their life compared to 73% so far in the
2020s (72% in 2022).
What has changed more is that the share of adult Catholics who are currently married has declined. In the 1970s, an average of 67% of Catholics who were asked their marital status said they were married compared to an average of 53% so far in the 2020s (52% in 2022).
The average share of adult Catholics who had ever divorced jumped from 10% of adult Catholics in the 1970s to 22% in the 2020s (some of these Catholics go on to have a different “current” marital status when polled due to remarriage). Additionally, 12% of adult Catholics, on average, said they were currently separated in the 2020s compared to an average of 4% in the 1970s.
With 72% of adult Catholics having been married in 2022 and 20% having ever experienced divorce in the same year, we can say about 28% of those Catholics who marry experience divorce at some point.
One trend with a much steeper curve is related to Catholics marrying non-Catholics. There has been a lot of change over time in the share of interfaith weddings celebrated in the Church. From 1970 to 2001 the average percentage of weddings in parishes that were interfaith was 33%. From 2015 to 2022 this averaged 21%. In 1970 there were nearly 144,484 interfaith marriages celebrated in the Church compared to just over 21,697 in 2022.
It's not just interfaith marriages in the Church that have declined in number. Total marriages overall in the Church are down as Catholics are increasingly choosing to marry outside the Church. Until the mid-1990s, about half of marriages involving Catholics were celebrated in the Church and the other half somewhere else—in another religious or secular setting (e.g., country clubs, beaches, banquet halls, hotels). From 2000 to 2022 this rose steadily to where three-quarters of marriages of Catholics occur outside of the Church.
Creative Commons image courtesy of Nom & Malc Mustard Yellow Photography.
