RNS and CARA: Catholic Growth and Decline

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4 responses to “RNS and CARA: Catholic Growth and Decline”

1. Jeff Rice

   June 3, 2015

   Is anyone is looking at this within the historical context over the last 200 years in the western world at least of faith becoming more and more a true choice of the individual rather than something being imposed by the state, society, or even family? Perhaps religious affiliation in 2015 is a stronger indication of true belief than it was in 1950 or 1850, when renouncing one’s faith would have had more severe consequences. Could it be that a smaller church composed of a higher percentage of those who truly buy into their faith be better positioned to take on the task of evangelization, which has essentially been an afterthought for centuries? And could a smaller, yet more invested laity better hold church hierarchy to a higher standard of leadership? It’s sad to witness the breakdown of faith being passed down from generation to generation especially in the family, and that needs to be restored. However, my belief is the proclamation of the Gospel message from the church will be much stronger and clearer in an age when being Christian isn’t something one practices because it’s fashionable or useful in getting ahead in the world.

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2. Scott Smith

   June 3, 2015

   Interestingly, while the CARA study gives an estimate of the total “Catholic population” of 1.2 Billion, the more interesting figure may well be average weekly mass attendance (or average Sunday attendance, ASA, in the terminology used in Protestant circles). This number is going to give us a much better read on how many actual practicing Catholics there are in the world, given it is widely acknowledged that the total number of “census” Catholics includes many who have no real relationship with the Church.

   CARA does not provide that number directly, but they do provide total Catholic population and weekly mass attendance percentage by continent, so we can work it out (figures on less frequent attendees might be better, but we will work with what we have).

   On my calculations, the Catholic Church’s global 2012 ASA works out at about 443,432,420 (i.e. just less than ½ billion, with a global mass attendance rate of 36%). This is up in absolute terms from 1990 (which I calculate as 389,786,890), and perhaps a percentage point down in relative terms (from 7% to 6% of world population).

   Now ASA might be expected to low ball Catholic numbers a little, given for example the difficulty of getting to Mass in some areas, and those who might come only monthly etc .

   However, the places where that might be expected to be important such as Africa actually have the highest Mass attendance percentage (70% in 2012), so it does not look like those types of factors are massively material.

   Therefore we can, if we gross up the number to an even 500,000,000 to take account of the expected undercounting, assert with some confidence that the global practicing Catholic population is more like 0.5 billion (i.e. 6% of world population) rather than the 1.2 Billion (i.e. 17% of world population) commonly talked about.

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3. Jim McKay

   June 4, 2015

   Is this a proper place to say you are being “more Catholic than the Pope”? The statistics come ultimately from the Vatican.

   The best you can say from your analysis is that there are .5b Catholic equivalents, Catholics who attend Church every Sunday. 4 people who attend Church once a month have an ASA of 1, and make up 1 catholic equivalent. These people need to be subtracted from your .5b if you want only those who go every week, or added in if you want to include those who attend monthly. If everyone attended once a month, there would be 2b Catholics, more than the Vatican claims! If you count 4 monthly attendees as 4 instead of one, and 26 people who attend twice a year as 26 instead of 1, you might end up close to 1.2b.

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   1. Scott Smith

      June 4, 2015

      @Jim McKay:

      The statistics come ultimately from the Vatican.

      The statistics on “Catholic population” are trying to count one thing (i.e. self identified Catholics), and I another (those engaged with the Church).

      The Catholic population figure has its own worth, but I happen to think the number of those engaged is more interesting for various purposes.

      These people need to be subtracted from your .5b if you want only those who go every week, or added in if you want to include those who attend monthly.

      The figures I have presented are based on those who self report coming every week, and not on a headcount. People tend to over report their actual attendance, so in actual fact fewer will attend weekly, but on the other hand my numbers will exclude irregular attendees.

      But I am not actually trying to figure out how many people are at Mass on any given Sunday, but rather what percentage of self-identified Catholics actually have a meaningful connection with the Church (i.e. are practicing etc). As I say, the percentage who report attending monthly or more would likely be a better guide for that, but those figures did not appear to be in the CARA report.

      As a guide, from other CARA data, in the US monthly + weekly attendees is about double weekly attendees alone (i.e. 40 something % rather than 20 something %). So my numbers do understate, but I can’t find those figures for other places, and nor can I just double them across the board (i.e. African mass attendance can’t go from 70% to 140%).

      If everyone attended once a month, there would be 2b Catholics, more than the Vatican claims! If you count 4 monthly attendees as 4 instead of one, and 26 people who attend twice a year as 26 instead of 1, you might end up close to 1.2b.

      So, if you double count people, you will get an inflated number? If I count everyone in the world twice, my population count will be 14 billion not 7 billion, but it will not be a great reflection of reality.

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