May 18, 2015, by Mark M. Gray
What does the typical American Catholic look like? Surveys conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate tell us she is a 48-year-old, non-Hispanic white, married woman with a Catholic spouse. She is of the post-Vatican II generation (born between 1961 and 1981). Born in 1968, she is probably named Mary, since the fourth most popular girl’s name for that year was Mary, and that name is not a bad choice, given the Catholic cultural odds, over Lisa, Kimberly or Michelle for our Catholic demographic stand-in.
CARA has been studying the Catholic Church for more than 50 years. In the last five, we have completed multiple national surveys of self-identified Catholic adults and of pastors. From these we can statistically discern what the “typical” or “average” Catholic experiences in the United States in this second decade of the 21st century.
‘Mary’ by the Numbers
“Mary” has attended college, owns a home and lives in a western state. The annual household income for her family is more than $65,000. She has a teenage son or daughter still living at home, and she works full time.
She has another adult child who no longer lives at home. Neither of these children is named Mary (this name fell out of the top 50 in 2002 and has been outside the top 100 since 2009). As a child, Mary did not go to Catholic schools as her parents did, and she did not enroll her children either. While she attended parish-based religious education, her children did not.
Currently, she attends Mass at least once a month and always on Ash Wednesday, Easter and Christmas. She keeps up with her parish community by reading the parish bulletin. Her household gives about $10 at the offertory collection. Mary does not use much Catholic media other than the bulletin and is not very active in their parish outside of attending Mass. She will probably never see this article. Her faith is important to her, but there are other things in her life that are equally important.
Surveys of pastors tell us Mary likely attends a parish established in the early 1920s that currently has room in the pews for about 450 people. Her parish has about 3,000 parishioners, of whom about 2,500 are registered (including Mary). She attends Mass on a typical Sunday with about 1,000 of them. They have four Masses to choose from—one in Spanish.
The parish used to have an elementary school, but this closed five years ago. Any interested students are now sent to a regional Catholic school shared and supported in collaboration with other nearby parishes. Her parish has a resident diocesan priest as pastor and a deacon. Most of the parish leadership is older than Mary—in their 50s, 60s and 70s. About 10 people are on the parish staff, and five of these individuals are in ministry positions.
Mary has heard that her diocese may go through a reorganization in the next decade. The bishop is doing his best to balance a difficult staffing equation. Soon the diocese’s parishes will outnumber the total number of active diocesan priests, which will require some parishes to share pastors and staff or to merge.
Of course this singular “average” portrait obscures an enormous amount of diversity within Catholicism in the United States. Mary could just as easily be “Maria,” her Hispanic counterpart among the 38 million “mainstream” Catholics who attend Mass at least once a month. Maria is slightly younger than Mary and has more children. She is less likely to be working and is living in a household that on average earns less than Mary’s.
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