What constitutes a "large" parish in your mind?

[JennBob]

Just out of curiosity,how many members constitutes “large” or “small” in your mind?
My parish church seats 1100 and is fairly full most times.We have a Saturday evening Mass,and 3 Masses on Sunday morning with an evening youth Mass once a month.
When I go home to visit my folks,their Catholic church is one of those cozy little ones that seats about a hundred and fifty.
I know when Hubby and I got married 18 years ago,the pastor said there were over 7,000 people registered in our parish,yet it is not the largest in our city by far.
And,do you belong to a “large” or “small” parish?

 

[Phemie]

I belong to a small parish.

The national census says there are about 1500 Catholics in our community, about 20% of the population. My parish list shows about 430 families but since there hasn’t been an official parish census in at least 15 years that’s a guess at best.

The Catholic residents of the local military base are members of our parish but we have no idea who they are unless they make the effort to contact us and register and usually they don’t do that unless they want to use donation envelopes.

Our church seats about 250 and the only time we have full pews are at the Children’s Mass on Christmas Eve and perhaps the odd funeral.

 

[KCT]

2400 families, 7 Masses/ weekend.

NOT the largest in the area by a longshot!

 

[Joannm]

We have 3,000 families and are considered mid-size in our diocese. There are two parishes I think with over 10,000 families.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

Ours is considered small. About 300 families, about 950 people.

My old parish had on paper about 800 families and 2400 people. However, they hadn’t done a census in decades, and if your family was registered there and never took yourself off the rolls when you moved, they counted you. They claimed to have about 500 families that gave nothing to $5/week. I think if they’d surveyed, they would have found more like they only had 400-500 families who did give more.

This causes problems when it’s time for diocesan fun campaign. Big numbers at new parish means the finance committe begs for the diocese funds for months and months, from May generally through October. This is because if a parish doesn’t get their goal through parishoner donations, the parish has to “eat” the cost and still give the diocese the money. So, Old Parish has to come up with some $75K every year.

New Parish only had to come with $21K. We’ve almost reached our goal. Sometimes, it’s nice to be smaller.

 

[CB_Catholic]

We are large for our area–about 3200 families registered. Our church seats 900 at max, and we have 6-7 Masses on the weekend (the Lifeteen Mass is only during the school year.) 2 priests, one Deacon, and 1 Deacon belonging to another parish that will help out part-time.

 

[puzzleannie]

we can cram in 360 for Christmas eve Masses but normal capacity is about 300, we have 5 weekend Masses (4 in the summer), print 1000-1200 bulletins, depending on time of year–less in summer when Winter Texans are gone and school is out.

our new church is planned for a seating capacity of 1500, based on projected growth for our geographically large parish. half of new housing in our town is within our boundaries. parish to the north is also building a new church to double its capacity.

according to Capital Campaign research using 2000 census, there are 28000 people living in our boundaries, 18,000 self-identify as Catholic, 1000 are registered parishioners who participate in life and work of the parish (including but not limited to regular donations). 700 in CCD, 20-30 adults in faith formation each year. larger parish to our west doubles that, as does parish SE of us, but excluding 5-6 large parishes like that, we are still one of the biggest. 4 parishes with 7 missions in a town of 60M people in an area officially still 80% Catholic

we have a school, regional not parish, with 300 children (doubled its enrollment in 6 years) but more than half reside outside our parish.

 

[Ted_in_Charlott]

Largest in the area with over 23,000 registered parishioners among our 7000+ households. Some Sundays it it is like going to a NBA basketball game there are so many people there, “we run out of parking so get there early type” big. Growing too. Standing room only at 10:45am Mass.

 

[Phemie]

We only have 2 Sunday Masses, the Saturday anticipated Mass and the 10 a.m. one Sunday.

Money-wise, last year our collections totalled 56,054 and that included the collections that had to be sent out of the parish (Missions; Holy Land; Share Lent; Canadian Missions; Pope’s Pastoral Works). 9 families donated 25% of that.

 

[Em_in_FL]

We go to a large parish… I’ve heard numbers roughly around 4000 families.
We have 6 weekend Masses and our parish seats about 1500.
Of course (unfortunately) there is standing room only for Christmas and Easter… but the majority of the weekend Masses are are FULL with regular parishioners.

 

[SeekerJen]

I think my parish has about 2000 registered families and has an official capacity of 800 (I don’t know if that includes the choir risers or loft). It’s not the largest in the city; the parish where I grew up probably has over 3000 families and seats 1500.