Five years ago, when COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and lockdowns began, many U.S. Catholics turned online to continue some semblance of worship on Sundays. Google search volumes for “Catholic Mass” increased 458% from what they were in February 2020. Prior to the pandemic, the search volumes for Catholic Mass on YouTube were comparatively low all the way back to January 2008, when measurements became possible.
Search volumes vary from 0 to 100. From January 2008 to February 2020, the average monthly search volume for Catholic Mass on YouTube was 6. This rose to an average of 78 from March 2020 through April 2022. After this time through today, the search volume for Catholic Mass has been 39. This tends to rise some during months including Ash Wednesday, Easter, and Christmas.
It appears the pandemic has created a new habit. Although in-person Mass attendance has returned to pre-pandemic levels, there is still a higher demand for watching Catholic Mass online than before the pandemic. This is not as high as it was during the peak interest period from March 2020 to April 2022, but is still elevated enough to represent a significant new behavior adopted by Catholics that did not exist as broadly in the past.
