The Marriage Question: In the Church or not?

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

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?

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?