A study into the changing face of US Catholic parishes reveals the average number of registered parishioners in American parishes has grown 45% in the last 10 years.
As well as getting bigger, the study found that parishes are getting more complex, more diverse and more than half of all parish staff are women.
The study also shows:
- more than 50% of parishes celebrate 4 or more masses on Sunday
- 28% of parishes celebrate 5 or more masses on Sunday
- the average number of Sunday masses is 3.8 per parish
- 27% of parishes involved in the survey are “clustered”
- 29% of parishes celebrate mass in a language other than English
- 81% of non-English masses are celebrated in Spanish (about 6% of the total number of all masses celebrated)
- the number of diocesan priests celebrating these masses has declined by 11%
- the long-term decline in US Catholic mass attendance has dropped and mass attendance is now steady.
The significant increase in the size of the average Catholic parish is a combination of US Catholic population growth and the closing or consolidation of many, especially smaller parishes.
The number of Catholic parishes peaked in 1990 at 19,620 and dropped by 1,359 or 7.1% in the last decade. The current number of parishes is like that in 1965, but unlike the 1965 figure, the Catholic population is 77.7 million, 75% higher than it was around this time.
The decrease of priests priests has been off-set by part-time paid lay parish workers and an increase in permanent deacons and 5% of parishes have a parish-life co-ordinator, a deacon, layperson, religious brother or sister as their leader.
The study, published by the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, reinforces earlier studies on the growth of lay ecclesial ministries. It projects the Catholic population in 2050 will be between 95.4 – 128 million.
Sources
- NCR Online
- Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate – Super-sizing parishes (PDF)
- Image: Schonstatt Movement
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News category: World.
