How many people can typically fit inside a Catholic church?

[Ignatius]

mmcounts:

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My church in my hometown in Minnesota holds at least 2500.

And how many Masses per weekend? If it is 5, then that church could easily provide for a flock of 12,500.

I think the key to the OP’s consternation is that he assumes the Protestant model of one Sunday service and he doesn’t realize that Catholic Parishes have many Masses each weekend. My parish, for example has A Sunday vigil mass, then 6:30, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM English as well as 12:00 and 1:30 PM Spanish Masses and another 5:30 PM in English. Then there are the a 9:00 Vietnamese and 1:30 Korean Masses in the Parish hall. Of course there is also the 3:00 PM Extraordinary Form Mass.
"mmcounts:

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.

So, mm and kimmie, do you see the flaw in your basic assumptions?
It’s not hard to accommodate a lot of Faithful, as I said I think the key to the OP’s consternation is his incorrect assumption of the Protestant model of one Sunday service; you can’t do accompdate that many faithful with only one Sunday service.

I hope this helps clear it up for you.

Your Servant in Christ.

 

[SteveVH]

26,000 If you slice them thin and stack them to the ceilings

 

[Ignatius]

My church in my hometown in Minnesota holds at least 2500.

And how many Masses per weekend? If it is 5, then that church could easily provide for a flock of 12,500.

I think the key to the OP’s consternation is that he assumes the Protestant model of one Sunday service and he doesn’t realize that Catholic Parishes have many Masses each weekend. My parish, for example has A Sunday vigil mass, then 6:30, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM English as well as 12:00 and 1:30 PM Spanish Masses and another 5:30 PM in English. Then there are the a 9:00 Vietnamese and 1:30 Korean Masses in the Parish hall. Of course there is also the 3:00 PM Extraordinary Form Mass.
"mmcounts:

.

.

So, mm and kimmie, do you see the flaw in your foundational assumptions?
It’s not hard to accommodate a lot of Faithful, as I said I think the key to the OP’s consternation is his incorrect assumption of the Protestant model of one Sunday service; you can’t do accompdate that many faithful with only one Sunday service.

I hope this helps clear it up for you.

Your Servant in Christ.

 

[Lapey]

My home parish church has a capacity of about 1200 (not too sure though, could be a shigh as 1500, it’s pretty big as compared to most in the diacese.) We have 1400 families with 4.5k people. Three Sunday masses and one Saturday vigil. One stationed priest and two retired priest to help out, one nun, and one soon to be deacon, me!

 

[Ignatius]

My church in my hometown in Minnesota holds at least 2500.

And how many Masses per weekend? If it is 5, then that church could easily provide for a flock of 12,500.

I think the key to the OP’s consternation is that he assumes the Protestant model of one Sunday service and he doesn’t realize that Catholic Parishes have many Masses each weekend. My parish, for example has A Sunday vigil mass, then 6:30, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM English as well as 12:00 and 1:30 PM Spanish Masses and another 5:30 PM in English. Then there are the a 9:00 Vietnamese and 1:30 Korean Masses in the Parish hall. Of course there is also the 3:00 PM Extraordinary Form Mass.
"mmcounts:

.

.

So, mm and kimmie, do you see the flaw in your foundational assumptions?
It’s not hard to accommodate a lot of Faithful, as I said I think the key to the OP’s consternation is his incorrect assumption of the Protestant model of one Sunday service; you can’t do accompdate that many faithful with only one Sunday service.

I hope this helps clear it up for you.

Your Servant in Christ.

 

[kimmielittle]

And how many Masses per weekend? If it is 5, then that church could easily provide for a flock of 12,500.

I think the key to the OP’s consternation is that he assumes the Protestant model of one Sunday service and he doesn’t realize that Catholic Parishes have many Masses each weekend. My parish, for example has A Sunday vigil mass, then 6:30, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM English as well as 12:00 and 1:30 PM Spanish Masses and another 5:30 PM in English. Then there are the a 9:00 Vietnamese and 1:30 Korean Masses in the Parish hall. Of course there is also the 3:00 PM Extraordinary Form Mass.

So, mm and kimmie, do you see the flaw in your foundational assumptions?
It’s not hard to accommodate a lot of Faithful, as I said I think the key to the OP’s consternation is his incorrect assumption of the Protestant model of one Sunday service; you can’t do accompdate that many faithful with only one Sunday service.

I hope this helps clear it up for you.

Actually, no it doesn’t clear up my joke or your failure to see it as such, to me.

I always thought these little grinnie faces indicated humor.

I hope this helps

 

[ncgolf]

Does one of those stick out to you? I noticed one that did.

This makes me wonder something. Can this be accounted for if Catholic churches are, on average, at least 5 times larger than other churches and they have about 10 services a week?

I belong to a parish in Charlotte, NC that has about 7500 families and close to 20,000 in population (counting children). Our church holds close to 2500 people. It’s big. I believe we have the largest population of Christians of any denomination in the southeast. Our faith formation program has to instruct close to 5000 kids … its like trying to run a small college.

Intersting thing is the Jewish synagogue is too small for their large services so our pastor has allowed Jewish services in the church. The cross is covered up though.

We have 6 weekend masses … and for Christmas and Easter … the local Catholic high school gym is used so we must have close to 20 masses for those days.

 

[Corki]

Or could this be because most of the 66 million “Catholics” in the United States were baptized that way as babies, haven’t stepped into a Catholic church in decades, and are still counted Catholic just as much as anyone else?

So anyway. How many people can typically fit inside a Catholic church?

The “membership” numbers seem to be a little…out of touch. With reality, that is. In order to get a better grasp on reality, I’m looking for the typical number of people that can fit inside a Catholic church, which I will then multiply by 408,637. That would give us a still-rather-optimistic view of the worldwide Catholic population if every single Catholic parish and mission had a “sellout” on the same morning.

Just trying to get a feel for the state of Catholicism in the world today. Given this sort of data, I can’t be entirely satisfied with numbers that range from 990 million to 1.1 billion. If I went by those kinds of numbers, I’d be thinking there were 1 billion Sunni Muslims in the world, too.

No, those “haven’t stepped into a Catholic Church in decades” Catholics aren’t even counted in the figures. Parishes count number of registered families. My parish has about 400 registered families but there are neighboring parishes with 4000+ registered families. Registered families have some formal contact with the parish which may be devout or may be “Christmas and Easter” or may be just sending the kids while Mom goes shopping. Here in Texas, we have many undocumented immigrants who don’t typically register. That means that the actual number of affiliated families is about 150% of the number of registered families (at least that’s the approximate number in my parish).

 

[O.S.Luke]

I think all U.S. Christians, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, need not be too cocky about churches that are full, while there are other churches and parishes that are closing.

This article (click here) certainly shows a glimmer of hope for the use of some very beautiful churches that are empty. But I fear they are the exception, rather than the rule.

We are looking more and more like European Christianity everyday - dying and esoteric instead of growing and vibrant.

 

[puzzleannie]

In our church? 60 confirmation candidates, 60 sponsors and about 120–150 (very squished) parents & family, 8 catechists, 1 deacon, 2 priests and one bishop, plus 4 altar servers and 4 ushers. If this class keeps getting bigger we will have to have 2 celebrations next time. Our capital campaign calls for seating 1000 downstairs about 200 in each of 2 balconies, 100 in a “comfort zone” for handicap and elderly access designed to be close to reserved parking for them. If the Catholics in our boundaries were actually attending this parish instead of going elsewhere because every Mass is packed, we will fill that space for at least 5 Masses each weekend.

 

[O.S.Luke]

The percentages of Americans churched is going down when compared with the growing population of the U.S., with grave concerns about the next 20 years when the next generation of church-goers dies. Between 1990 to 2008 the overall U.S. population increased, which resulted in some gains for certain communions, yet the actual percentage of Christians dropped from 86.2% to 76.0% during that time.

This is a very sobering report which all of us need to need (click here).

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I . . .

Intersting thing is the Jewish synagogue is too small for their large services so our pastor has allowed Jewish services in the church. The cross is covered up though.
. . .

A neighboring parish allowed a Jewish congregation to use the church for their High Holy Days. A little old lady apparently didn’t get the word and was heard to comment on her way out: “That was weird even for this parish.” [They are not known for an over attentiveness to the rules.]

 

[Petergee]

Catholic Churches do tend to be very large structures. My church in my hometown in Minnesota holds at least 2500. My church in Tuscaloosa, in the heart of the Deep South, recently expanded to hold over 1000. The two churches I attend when I visit my parents in Arizona hold around 2500 each. My aunt’s parish in the Chicago suburbs holds around 1500. Even my cousin’s parish in a small, remote South Dakota town holds 500-700.

I’d wager that the reason for this dates back to the beginnings of the church. Since the Catholic Church was the only denomination, why would you build several smaller churches in your town and split up resources? Most towns went for a large, grand church that could hold the entire city. It was actually a better investment in most cases. This concept goes all the way back to the enormous Hagia Sophia cathedral built by Justinian in Constantinople.

The main reason is that until the 19th century, very few cities had suburbs of any size. Virtually everyone who lived in a city lived within walking distance (or at most a few minutes by horse-power) of the Cathedral or church in the centre of the city.

 

[Ignatius]

The OP’s ovbious implication is that there couldn’t possibly be that many Catholics. The key to the OP’s error is that he assumes the Protestant model of one Sunday service and he doesn’t realize that Catholic Parishes have many Masses each weekend. For example our Church only seats around 1000 people. But, as I pointed out above, my parish has both English and Spanish Sunday vigil masses, then 6:30, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM English on Sunday morning as well as 12:00 and 1:30 PM Spanish Masses and another 5:30 PM in English. Then there are the a 9:00 Vietnamese and 1:30 Korean Masses in the Parish hall. Of course there is also the 3:00 PM Extraordinary Form Mass. It is very easy to accomodate thousands of parishoners, but not using the protestant model of one service each Sunday, you need to use the Catholic model in order to accomodate that many faithful.

Your servant in Christ.