Catholic Statistics--Help!

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Okay, I’ve been talking with a Presbyterian friend for a while. And every now and then our conversations turn to religion, which we have awesome discussions about. But one thing I do notice that pcusa.org has statistics down to each church, while I have NOT been able to find statistics down to the parish for Catholics! (We were talking about how unfortunate it is that some of the churches have small attendance, and it sorta went on from there).

So…does anybody have a current-ish directory on hand to help me, please? 🙂

I’m looking for parishoner statistics by the parish for Omaha. Notably, St. Elizabeth Ann, St. James, St. Vincent De Paul, St. Cecilia (cathedral), St. Margaret Mary, and what’s the largest and smallest parish in the Archdiocese of Omaha? Just by average attendance or registered parishoners.

If there’s any place I can access this online for free, and possibly refer him to, that would be deeply appreciated! Thank you!!! 🙂
 
The best place to find information on census stats in parishes is a handly little(BIG) book called The Official Catholic Directory. (Published by P.J. Kenedy & Sons) Unfortunately, it’s horridly expensive ><; ($335 for non-clergy) It might not be too hard to find a parish in your area that has one, though. Still, if you can’t get your hands on a recent edition of that…

I’ve been searching online for over an hour now, and I still can’t find anything specific. I can find broad US statistics, but nothing for specific diocese or parishes. The best I could say is for you to just call the parishes you’re interested in to ask them how many parishoners they have. Tell them it’s for research if they ask why.

What I can say that registered members of Catholic parishes far outweigh the average of non-Catholic parishes (the average for Catholics is something around 3500 per parish, while the average non-Catholic church has about 300.)

I hope some of this is helpful. That big book of info I linked above might be the reason why stats are hard to find online. The Catholic Church does a census every year, but that information stays within the parish as well as getting sent to the publisher of that book. It doesn’t really seem to go anywhere else.
 
Our diocese issues a directory annually with each parish in it, which includes mass schedules, staff names and number ofcurrent members. It may not list how many of the registered parishioners regularly attend mass but at least it’s a start. Check with the diocese and see if they publish one. More than likely the parish will have a copy in their rectory and allow you to peruse through it.
 
Thank you, FanChan for looking for so long, I appreciate it! 🙂 That’s unfortunate the Catholic Church doesn’t make it available online, but it must be because of some sort of agreement they have with the publisher. And thanks, stbruno! I will check with these places…I was hoping though, to direct him to a general Catholic website that’s the equivalent of pcusa.org. I guess next time I’ll refer him to the usccb.org website.

I will email the parishes, and I’m curious myself, anyway! That’s amazing, how the average registered members of Catholics per parish outnumber those of non-Catholic churches.

It’s been amazing to talk with him, and now I hopefully have resources to be more knowedgeable. The difficult part is that he’s a inactive ordained deacon so I’m not as smart as I feel like I should be. :o (Don’t worry, I know how to search the Bible and I have a copy of the Catcheism, and other resources.)

And thanks, again, guys 🙂 I appreciate the CAF so much for good Catholic advice.
 
Holly… I remember seeing a website that rates Catholic Diocese by # of baptisms, # of priests per parishoner, etc… but I can’t remember where… It does not break down to parish level but does go to diocese level… I will try to find it…
 
Blest One, I thank you very much for your time 🙂 I actually appreciate everybody’s help 🙂

1ke, It’s not necessarily THAT important, like a theological question or such. But you know, when we’re talking about how unfortunate it is that some churches’ # of members decline and such, and then he brings up pcusa.org and how they have all those statistics (he was double-checking the numbers). I felt certain that Catholics, being a more populous religion, would also have statistics like that! But the more I looked, the more I felt rather…hmm…disappointed that Catholics don’t have such a handy dandy resource equivalent to that website. In fact, vatican.va has hardly any info on it, and you’d think it would… It’s stupid, I know, but I love my faith, but sometimes I’m seriously disappointed we don’t have a really thorough website to refer people to. Especially one without ads. Think of how that appears, all those flashing ads on certain websites. It feels akin to having a neon sign advertising inside church.
 
Have you heard the quote “The church in Rome thinks in centuries rather than years”?

On the diocese level, the Church has been keeping VERY detailed statistics on this stuff for a long time. However, the practice of putting records on the web for the public to see is brand-new, just a few years old.
holly_potter said:
Blest One, I thank you very much for your time 🙂 I actually appreciate everybody’s help 🙂

1ke, It’s not necessarily THAT important, like a theological question or such. But you know, when we’re talking about how unfortunate it is that some churches’ # of members decline and such, and then he brings up pcusa.org and how they have all those statistics (he was double-checking the numbers). I felt certain that Catholics, being a more populous religion, would also have statistics like that! But the more I looked, the more I felt rather…hmm…disappointed that Catholics don’t have such a handy dandy resource equivalent to that website. In fact, vatican.va has hardly any info on it, and you’d think it would… It’s stupid, I know, but I love my faith, but sometimes I’m seriously disappointed we don’t have a really thorough website to refer people to. Especially one without ads. Think of how that appears, all those flashing ads on certain websites. It feels akin to having a neon sign advertising inside church.
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Also, the idea that everything should be throughly typed up and put on the web (or in a library) is a very American (and maybe European) ideal. In most world cultures, information is disseminated through word of mouth.

For example, in Latin America, there are few parishes that even print bulletins (not even the wealthy ones) and putting up a parish website is almost unheard-of.

(Google high-context vs low-context cultures to learn more…)

For this reason, it’s unlikely that the Vatican is going to develop a huge centralized website with everything you need to learn about the faith. In most of the world, people would seek word-of-mouth information from a priest or another Catholic and would never even think about looking on the web. (Plus all the political problems this would cause – what kind of ideology would the website maintainers have?)

The Presbyterian Church USA doesn’t have to worry about this stuff because they’re an American institution.
holly_potter said:
Blest One, I thank you very much for your time 🙂 I actually appreciate everybody’s help 🙂

1ke, It’s not necessarily THAT important, like a theological question or such. But you know, when we’re talking about how unfortunate it is that some churches’ # of members decline and such, and then he brings up pcusa.org and how they have all those statistics (he was double-checking the numbers). I felt certain that Catholics, being a more populous religion, would also have statistics like that! But the more I looked, the more I felt rather…hmm…disappointed that Catholics don’t have such a handy dandy resource equivalent to that website. In fact, vatican.va has hardly any info on it, and you’d think it would… It’s stupid, I know, but I love my faith, but sometimes I’m seriously disappointed we don’t have a really thorough website to refer people to. Especially one without ads. Think of how that appears, all those flashing ads on certain websites. It feels akin to having a neon sign advertising inside church.
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You also have to keep in mind that while mass attendance is in the backs of every priest’s mind, it’s not terribly important to the Church. We put far more resources into increasing the attendance than we do in telling everyone where it is now.

Also, think about what you yourself said, about how much more populous the Catholic faith is than the others. It would take a great deal of time and resources to come up with all of it.

I think Protestants or Non-Catholic Christians have taken the time and energy to put something like that together because church attendance can be for them something that proves what they’re doing works and is right. For Catholics, even if the Church were rendered to one building, one priest, and one parishoner, it would not decrease the Truth and purpose of the faith in any way. It would simply be a tragedy, a battle won for Satan. (But I can gurantee, even if that were to happen, it wouldn’t be very long before that one priest and one parishoner had millions of followers again. Hurray for the Holy Spirit!)

In relation to the subject of suffering numbers, I’ve heard it put this way:

Sometimes to make a tree stronger, branches have to be pruned back, the dead leaves plucked off. Our numbers all over the world may be dwindling, but look at who is being left behind. The faith is strengthening. The veil is coming back among young women, the Tridentine Mass is being embraced by young and old all across the world, and especially the young people of the Church are taking a powerful interest in knowing where our Faith came from, how it came to be how it is today, and where it’s going.

So while it is a little sad that mass attendance has dropped, I think it’s beautiful that what’s being exposed by those people leaving is a powerful, intelligent, and faithful Church.
 
stats for each diocese are with the national bishop’s council, stats for each parish with the individual diocese. most dioceses have a websited with access to each parish link.
 
FanChan said:
The best place to find information on census stats in parishes is a handly little(BIG) book called The Official Catholic Directory. (Published by P.J. Kenedy & Sons) Unfortunately, it’s horridly expensive ><; ($335 for non-clergy) It might not be too hard to find a parish in your area that has one, though. Still, if you can’t get your hands on a recent edition of that…

I’ve been searching online for over an hour now, and I still can’t find anything specific. I can find broad US statistics, but nothing for specific diocese or parishes. The best I could say is for you to just call the parishes you’re interested in to ask them how many parishoners they have. Tell them it’s for research if they ask why.

What I can say that registered members of Catholic parishes far outweigh the average of non-Catholic parishes (the average for Catholics is something around 3500 per parish, while the average non-Catholic church has about 300.)

I hope some of this is helpful. That big book of info I linked above might be the reason why stats are hard to find online. The Catholic Church does a census every year, but that information stays within the parish as well as getting sent to the publisher of that book. It doesn’t really seem to go anywhere else.
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MOST (not all, but most- I had trouble finding one once-upon-a-time in Northwest Florida) have a copy.

You might also want to check the University of Chicago NORC site. They run all sorts of projects, some of them about Catholics, as a large percentage of the population in greater Chicagoland is Catholic.
 
Also, remember that the definition of “parishioner” is a little fuzzy. There are parishes where many registered parishioners have moved, changed parishes, or stopped practicing the faith. These parishioners remain on the membership rolls and inflate the total.

Also, there are parishes where hardly anyone registers. In one nearby parish, less than 20% of the active parishioners are registered. This parish is almost entirely ethnic minorities. (See my note on high-context cultures above.)

(This is why the Archdiocese of Washington takes an annual Mass attendance headcount, and does not rely on registration statistics.)

For these reasons, be suspicious of any statistic that just counts registered parishioners, and not actual Mass attendance.
FanChan said:
The best place to find information on census stats in parishes is a handly little(BIG) book called The Official Catholic Directory. (Published by P.J. Kenedy & Sons) Unfortunately, it’s horridly expensive ><; ($335 for non-clergy) It might not be too hard to find a parish in your area that has one, though. Still, if you can’t get your hands on a recent edition of that…

I’ve been searching online for over an hour now, and I still can’t find anything specific. I can find broad US statistics, but nothing for specific diocese or parishes. The best I could say is for you to just call the parishes you’re interested in to ask them how many parishoners they have. Tell them it’s for research if they ask why.

What I can say that registered members of Catholic parishes far outweigh the average of non-Catholic parishes (the average for Catholics is something around 3500 per parish, while the average non-Catholic church has about 300.)

I hope some of this is helpful. That big book of info I linked above might be the reason why stats are hard to find online. The Catholic Church does a census every year, but that information stays within the parish as well as getting sent to the publisher of that book. It doesn’t really seem to go anywhere else.
Click to expand...
 
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