Nineteen Sixty-four is a research blog for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University edited by Mark M. Gray. CARA is a non-profit research center that conducts social scientific studies about the Catholic Church. Founded in 1964, CARA has three major dimensions to its mission: to increase the Catholic Church's self understanding; to serve the applied research needs of Church decision-makers; and to advance scholarly research on religion, particularly Catholicism. Follow CARA on Twitter at: caracatholic.

7.25.2014

Rise of the Million Dollar Parish

In our previous post we noted that the Catholic Church in the United States has experienced a net loss of 1,753 parishes since 2000 (-9%). When the Church closes a parish it does not leave the parishioners “homeless.” They become members of a new territorial parish in a consolidation. This is creating a “supersizing” effect that parallels newer and larger parishes being built in the South and West where the Catholic population is growing strongly. With these two trends combined something new has emerged: the million dollar parish.

The knee jerk reaction to the existence of such an institution might be “sell it all and give the proceeds to the poor.” If you haven’t heard someone say this you need to spend more time reading the comments section of any news article referencing the Catholic Church. Of course if the Church did as suggested there would be no permanent presence of a brick and mortar institution in place to help those in need or to serve the Catholic community with Mass, religious education, and sacraments. The reality is that million dollar revenue parishes often now have million dollar expenses (i.e., these aren’t “bling” parishes!).


According to CARA’s recent National Survey of Catholic Parishes (NSCP), 28% of U.S. Catholic parishes now have annual revenue that exceeds $1 million. About one in ten parishes collects more than $1 million a year in offertory collections. Among the larger group of parishes with at least $1 million in annual revenue, the average expenses are more than $1.7 million with revenues, on average, coming in at more than $1.8 million.


As shown in the table below, the million dollar parishes are significantly larger than the average parish. Parishes collecting more than $1 million a year in offertory donations have, on average, nearly 8,300 parishioners and nearly 2,400 of them attend Mass on a typical weekend in October. With an average of 928 seats in their churches they host an average of about 5 Masses per weekend at this time of year to accommodate parishioners (at Christmas and Easter they need to double the number of these Masses).


Those employed by million dollar parishes don’t make much more in wages than those in the typical parish. However, because million dollar parishes tend to be bigger than the average parish they also have more staff members. If you add up the annual estimated wages for the staff members in the chart below they total about $500,000 (and when larger parishes have multiple people in some of these roles obviously the amount needed for total payroll increases even higher. The table also only includes a sampling of positions a parish may need to fill). The typical parish in the United States has expenses of more than $700,000 per year. With a good chunk of these expenses being wages, salaries, and benefits there is not a lot left over for other costs.


Even small parishes in the United States are still large buildings. Think about what you pay for energy, heat, telephones, internet, etc. for your home. Unless you live on a large estate, your pastor likely has to find a way to pay much more than you each month to keep the physical plant operational. Parishes also have rectories and some landscaping that must be maintained (…although pastors have among the lowest wages in the table above, they also receive housing, food, and living allowances that along with income total about $42,000 per year according to NACPA). The parish also provides for many in the community who are having trouble providing for themselves with food pantries, soup kitchens, and other assistance. It is also common for parishes to have a mortgage and/or other debt obligations.

On average, 16% of expenses in a typical parish, excluding wages and benefits for the staff involved, are related to providing religious education, faith formation, and worship ($144,000 per year). This is slightly higher in million dollar parishes (by revenue) at 18% of expenses ($337,200 per year). Most parishes have revenues that just exceed their expenses. About one in four parishes (25%) run deficits and some require diocesan subsidies for operations (8% of all parishes in 2013). 

Beyond offertory collections (and subsidies) parishes raise revenue in a variety of other ways. Twenty-eight percent utilize fundraising meals (e.g., dinners,  a fish fry during Lent), 25% have special collections (e.g., year-end giving requests, capital campaigns), 24% host parish picnics, carnivals, and/or fiestas, 18% use raffles and lotteries, 10% bake and food sales, 9% yard sales, 8% auctions, 5% seasonal events, and 4% use bingo. Other types of revenue can come from rental income, investments, sacramental fees, and votive candles.

There are national discussions concerning just wages and educational debt occurring in the United States. Catholic parishes are at the crossroads of both of these debates. More and more dioceses and parishes are seeking out professional lay ministers who have college degrees (often at the graduate level) and/or certifications from college programs. With college tuition costs rising much faster than incomes many have to finance their education through loans. However, when they are prepared to begin working in a parish they find it difficult to pay their bills (including school loan payments) with their ministry incomes. Many in America who earn graduate degrees in other fields do not go on to earn only $15 per hour. Yet, parishes would struggle to pay much more without a shift in the decisions of parishioners in the pews. The typical Mass attending Catholic household only gives about $10 per week to their parish. There is not much room at that level of giving to push wages higher. On average, 68% of total parish revenue is from parishioner giving at offertory collections.

The Church is grappling with the issue of educational debt on a variety of fronts. It is impeding religious vocations as well as discouraging highly-trained professionals who are struggling to live out their vocation as lay ministers. Unfortunately, the economics of million dollar parishes make it no easier to resolve these challenges.

About the National Survey of Catholic Parishes (NSCP)
The survey data described above was collected and analyzed through funding provided by SC Ministry Foundation and St. Matthew's Catholic Church in Charlotte, NC. In October 2013, CARA began sending invitations to 6,000 randomly selected parishes (5,000 by email and 1,000 mail) to take part in the National Survey of Catholic Parishes (NSCP). Stratification was used. The total number of parishes randomly selected in each diocese was determined by weighting the diocesan averages of the percentage of the Catholic population and the percentage of Catholic parishes in the United States in each diocese as reported in The Official Catholic Directory (OCD). This stratification ensures that parishes representing the full Catholic population were included rather than a sample more dominated by areas where there are many small parishes with comparatively small Catholic populations. A total of 486 email addresses were not valid and 68 of the mailed invitations were returned as bad addresses or as being closed parishes. Thus, the survey likely reached 5,446 parishes. The survey remained in the field as periodic reminders by email and mail were made until February 2014. Reminders were halted during Advent and the survey closed before Lent in 2014. A total of 539 responses to the survey were returned to CARA for a response rate of 10%. This number of responses results in a margin of sampling error of ±4.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence interval. Respondents include those returning a survey by mail or answering online. The survey consisted of 169 questions and spanned eight printed pages. A slightly smaller national CARA parish survey, including 141 questions from 2010, obtained a 15% response rate. Response rates for CARA parish surveys are correlated with the length of the questionnaire. Responding parishes match closely to the known distribution of parishes by region. Data for sacraments celebrated also match the OCD closely.

7.08.2014

Checkup Time


It’s time for a checkup. During the spring and summer every year the Vatican release’s the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae (ASE) and in the U.S., The Official Catholic Directory (OCD) is published. With the OCD out this week we’ve updated (and significantly expanded) CARA’s Frequently Requested Church Statistics page. 

This post compares the U.S. data in the 2014 OCD to the numbers released in 2000. There is good news and bad news. My bedside manner compels me to start with the good…

Ordinations to the priesthood and seminarians preparing for this vocation are up. Ordinations have increased by 12% since 2000 and the number of seminarians enrolled has increased by 5%. Yet the strongest growth among the clergy is in the number of permanent deacons who have gone from 12,378 in 2000 to 17,464 in 2013 (+41%). Essentially the Church now has enough deacons to have about one in every parish. The number of lay professional ministers (excluding vowed religious who serve in parish ministry) has also increased from 17,315 to 21,424 (+24%) or to about 1.2 per parish.

The parish-affiliated Catholic population has grown by 11% and the self-identified Catholic population has grown by 7% since 2000. Overall, the self-identified Catholic population has added 5 million. A significant portion of this growth has come from foreign-born Catholic adults which have increased by 4.4 million. CARA’s survey-based estimates of Mass attendance show a slight uptick from 22% attending weekly to 24%. With a growing Catholic population that means nationally the Church has seen the number of Catholics who go to church every week increase by more than 2.6 million since 2000 (+17%).


Now for the bad news—the things the Church needs to work on in the future to ensure its health…

The Catholic Church in the U.S. has experienced a net loss of 1,753 parishes since 2000 (-9%). Most of these losses have occurred in the Northeast and Midwest with too few parishes being opened in the South and West where Catholic population growth is concentrated. Although ordinations are up these remain insufficient to maintain the population of priests due to retirements and deaths. Overall, the number of priests in the U.S. has fallen by 7,424 since 2000 (-16%). The number of parishes without a resident priest pastor has increased by 653 to 3,496 (+23%). The ratio of active diocesan priests to parishes has decreased from 1.2 to a precarious 1.0. Although more parishes are without a resident priest pastor the Church has decreased the number of parishes where pastoral care is entrusted to a deacon or lay person (Canon 517.2) from 447 in 2000 to 388 now (-13%). Essentially, in many dioceses, parishes are being closed rather than having these entrusted to a deacon or lay person.


The number of religious sisters in the U.S. has now fallen below 50,000 after experiencing a 38% decline since 2000 (from 79,814 to 49,883). Religious brothers have experienced a decline of 24% (from 5,662 to 4,318).

Although the number of deacons and professional lay ministers are increasing there may be trouble ahead as there are fewer preparing to add themselves to these ranks. The number of permanent deacon candidates has fallen by 19% and the number of people enrolled in lay ecclesial ministry formation programs has dropped by 27% since 2000.

Catholic schools continue to face challenges with a net loss of 1,496 primary and secondary schools since 2000 (-18%). Enrollments have dropped by 478,938 (-20%). One bright note is in higher education with more than 100,000 students added to Catholic college and university enrollments since 2000 (+15%).

Sacramental practice numbers also show some declining trends. It is important to note that data for the 2014 OCD is collected in 2013 and in that year parishes are reporting the number of sacraments celebrated in the year previous (i.e., 2012). Thus, we still must wait until this time a year to see if any “Francis Effect” is evident in the 2015 OCD (which will include 2013 sacrament totals).

Baptisms of infants and minors have decreased by 22%. However, it is important to note some of this decline is in part related to fewer children being born. For example, there were 4.059 million births in the United States in 2000 and 3.953 million in 2012. In 2000, the fertility rate in the United States was very near the demographic “replacement rate” at 2.06 and is now well below this. U.S. population growth overall, not just among Catholics, is being fueled more and more by immigration.

One effect of falling fertility is you start to see strange stats like the number of first communions exceeding infant and minor baptisms in 2012 (758,034 compared to 713,302). Both first communions and confirmations are also down (-10% and -14%, respectively).

Adult conversions are also in decline with fewer adult baptisms (-51%) and receptions into full communion (-31%). Some of this is related to fewer Catholics marrying. The primary reason most adults convert to Catholicism is because they marry a Catholic. There were 2.3 million marriages in the United States in 2000 compared to 2.1 million in 2011. Not only are Americans less likely to marry now than in 2000, Catholics are less likely to marry in the Catholic Church. The number of marriages in the Church has declined by 41% since 2000 (from 261,626 to 154,450). Even the number of Catholic funerals is down 15% (…should I have noted that in the good news section?).

Since 2000, survey-based estimates of former Catholics—those raised in the faith who no longer self-identify as Catholic—have increased by 14.1 million. This is equivalent to more than 900,000 per year and this would be slightly larger than the number the Church added in baptisms and receptions into full communion in 2012 (817,757). It is still the case that Catholicism retains more of those raised in the faith than most other religions in the United States and every faith has “former members” (...some return as reverts). As the largest single faith in the United States it is also not unusual for the Catholic Church to therefore have the largest number of these former members (Why do they leave? See Pew’s Faith in Flux study). Still, the losses are very significant and there is a lot of work for those interested in New Evangelization to focus on with about 32 million former Catholics now residing in the United States.

Most who leave the faith do so in their teens and 20s. As we noted recently, some of this may be related to fewer young Catholics being enrolled in Catholic schools. It is assumed by many that the Catholics not enrolled in Catholic schools are participating in parish-based religious education. This is not the case as the numbers enrolled here are also down 24%. There are more than a million fewer children and teens in parish religious education classes now than in 2000.

This checkup gives the Church a lot to work on. Perhaps the more important checkup is a year away. With the 2015 OCD we’ll have a clearer idea of the impact of Pope Francis on the U.S. numbers. It is also the case that with unemployment declining and the economy continuing to recover we may expect to see increases in marriages, births, and baptisms. It is also important to note that globally the Church’s charts look very healthy with broad indicators of growth. 

Records image courtesy of Tom Magliery.

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