Is Interest in Catholicism falling online?

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?

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 “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

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.