Catholics Trail Protestants in Church Attendance

Gallup News Service ^ | December 16, 2003 | George H. Gallup Jr.

[RWR8189]

 

 

 

George Gallup Jr. is the Chairman of the George H. Gallup International Institute and is recognized internationally for his research and study on youth, health, religion, and urban problems.

After dipping to an all-time low in the wake of the recent sex abuse scandals afflicting the Catholic Church, weekly church attendance among Catholics appears to be on the rebound. However, historical Gallup Poll data show that Protestants have now clearly overtaken Catholics in church attendance, for the first time in Gallup polling history.

Between March 2002, when the news of the scandals broke, and February 2003, weekly church attendance among Catholics fell nine percentage points to 35%, the lowest measurement since Gallup began asking the question in 1955. By November 2003*, however, the figure had climbed 10 percentage points to 45%. Protestants' levels of church attendance, meanwhile, remained fairly stable during this same period.

While it is up from earlier this year, that 45% figure among Catholics is 29 percentage points lower than the 74% recorded when this question was first asked in 1955. Comparatively, Protestants' church attendance is actually slightly higher in November 2003 (48%) than it was in 1955 (42%).

Although religious convictions and beliefs tend to change little over the years, religious behavior reflects the tenor of the times to some degree, as a brief review of the last half-century reveals.

The 1950s

Expanding business and industry, accompanied by tremendous growth in the cities and suburbs, defined the 1950s. The post-World War II decade was also full of religious vitality, with rapid growth in church membership, especially in the booming new suburbs. Weekly church attendance was at 74% among Catholics and 42% among Protestants.

The 1960s

In the 1960s, Americans experienced major change and upheaval: rapid technological advances, the full emergence of the civil rights movement, urban riots, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy, war protests, the beginnings of the women's liberation movement, and strong anti-establishment feelings.

That anti-establishment sentiment may have carried over to organized religion, as weekly church attendance started to slide among both Protestants and Catholics. By 1969, church attendance was down 11 points from 1955 among Catholics, and 5 points among Protestants.

The Second Vatican Council, which began in 1962, ushered in an age of reform in the Roman Catholic Church. But despite the reforms offered in Vatican II, Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on birth control reaffirmed the church's strict stance on the issue. Many Catholics, particularly young adults, may have felt that they could not oppose the pope's encyclical and remain good Catholics, and therefore began to attend mass less frequently.

The 1970s

The activism of the 1960s gave way to disillusionment and cynicism in the 1970s. Americans were growing more pessimistic about the economy, the prospects for peace in the world, social institutions, and their own futures. Catholic attendance at Mass continued to slip during this decade -- from 60% in 1970 to 52% in 1979 -- but Protestants' weekly attendance showed little statistical change.

The 1980s

The public mood of discouragement, apparent during most of the 1970s, gave way to a far more upbeat frame of mind in the 1980s. Economic optimism increased during this period, and while concern over many problems confronting society -- such as crime, unemployment, and the nuclear threat -- remained, Americans were far less apprehensive about the immediate future than they had been in the previous decade. Catholic church attendance seemed to change very little during this decade, hovering between 51% and 53%.

The 1990s

Catholic church attendance has experienced some rises and dips during the 1990s and the first few years of the 21^st century, but nowhere near the decline that occurred between the 1950s and the 1980s. In March 2002, Protestants reported attending church more frequently on average than Catholics for the first time in nearly a half-century of Gallup Poll data collection. Protestants' levels of church attendance have remained higher than that of Catholics since then.

Bottom Line

Protestants pulled into a clear lead over Catholics in weekly church attendance after the sex scandals that rocked the Catholic Church in early 2002 -- but the decline in Catholic church attendance began long before the scandals. The latest November figure shows a decided rebound in attendance at Mass, but Catholics still trail Protestants by a small margin.

*Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,004 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 10-12, 2003. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

[Snuffington]

ping

[cubreporter]

Who cares? Catholics are Catholics and Protestants are Protestants. I didn't know there was a race going on. This is stupid! What does this have to do withts thing except to say Catholics trail Protestants in attendance? Huh?????????

[tbird5]

Catholics have to go to mass every Sunday. Protestants don't have to attend services weekly. This is sad for all those that call themselves Catholic.

[Salvation]

i disagree with these statistics.

[Salvation]

It's not sad. Catholics are there every week. At three, four, five, sometimes even as many as ten or eleven services! (The larger numbers are large parishes that may have three priests: a pastor, and two associate pastors, and usually one or two deacons.) Now I'll let you calculate the numbers.

[pbear8]

Catholics have the privilege of assisting at the Holy Sacifice of the Mass daily, we are required by scripture and tradition to attend Mass on Sunday and Holy Days. It is not sad, it is a great joy.

[Salvation]

Catholic archdiocese of Washington [D.C.] has largest ordination class in 14 years

Roman Catholic friar community growing

Retiring priests pose problem for the Archdiocese of Boston

Church Is Still Attracting Converts

[Salvation]

Priests Down, Seminarians Up

Seminary Springtime: Father Darrin Connall s Big Success

In Seminaries, New Ways for a New Generation

Answering an Uncommon Call Young American men dedicate themselves to priesthood

[sarasmom]

Are you passively ignorant, or do you have an active agenda?

[Salvation]

Catholic Discussion Ping!

Please notify me via Freepmail if you would like to be added to or removed from the Catholic Discussion Ping list.

[Salvation]

**it is a great joy.**

Amen!

Feast of the Nativity coming up!

How many Protestants have three or four Masses (services) on Christmas Day?

[I still care]

Thought this might be germaine to the discussion. I got it from a different thread - it's a statement by a spokesman from the pseudo religious National Council of (Communist) Churches.

"Marcus Welty, a researcher with the National Council of Churches, said mainline Protestants may not equal the numbers of their Evangelical counterparts, and their members may not be as churchgoing, but they do lead religious lives demonstrated by their volunteering for causes like reducing poverty and championing certain issues in communities."

In other words, it is the evangelicals that are attending church, not the "mainline" (theologically liberal) ones.

[Maximilian]

Interesting data from Gallup. One does notice a few statistical anomalies, like the negative outlier in 1997 and the positive one in 2000. Neither one fits the rest of the data. But the overall trend is unmistakable.

Hermann, care to explain one more time how this supports your theory that the fall in Catholic church attendance has nothing to do with changes in the Catholic Church, but is merely indicative of wider societal changes? Pretty near impossible to square that theory with the graph on this page which seems to indicate something diametrically opposite, since Protestant church attendance is higher now than it was in 1960. But then again, you can always fall back on the old, "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

[Land of the Irish]

How many Protestants have three or four Masses (services) on Christmas Day?

How many Catholics have three or four Masses on other Holy Days of Obligation. None - in my area.

[Salvation]

The large church here (with the eleven Masses on weekends) does!

Also 24/7 Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

[Land of the Irish]

Ping

[Maximilian]

How many Protestants have three or four Masses (services) on Christmas Day?

I think it's a mistake to look at this in a partisan spirit as though it were the Yankees versus the Red Sox. Instead we should look at it as a wake up call to ourselves. As Jesus was fond of saying, "Do not even the pagans do as much?" Catholics had a 30 percent head start over the protestants just a generation ago, and look how quickly we have lost it.

Regarding the protestant services on Christmas, that's easily answered by the fact that they have so many more churches. For example, our town has 1 Catholic church and at least a dozen different protestant denominations. They don't need so many people in one church to add up.

Regarding the percentages, these numbers are much, much higher than what is counted in the Catholic churches every October. I think what happens is that everyone who intended to go to church, both Catholics and protestants, answers "Yes," even though on that particular Sunday they may have slept in or been travelling or so forth. They answer "Yes" if they think of themselves as churchgoers even if they didn't technically go to church last Sunday like the question asked them.

[potlatch]

I was curious about your reply to tbird5. Catholics commit a Mortal Sin when they don't attend mass. I don't believe the same is true of Protestant churches. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Rome2000]

Protestants pulled into a clear lead over Catholics in weekly church attendance after the sex scandals

Gallup will be gone in the year 4000, but the Church will be doing just fine.

[Salvation]

**Gallup will be gone in the year 4000, but the Church will be doing just fine.**

LOL! So true!

[Salvation]

You have some valid point there.

[Trytophan Man]

There are 50,000 different Protestant denominations.

[Salvation]

Church grows when pastor helps people find God's love. (Nation).(Brief Article)
National Catholic Reporter, Dec 21, 2001, by Patricia Lefevere

They came. They saw. They heard. They left too soon.

That has been the pattern in many churches and synagogues since the Sept. 11 terror attacks dropped people to their knees and sent them scrambling to houses of worship nationwide.

Research by the Gallup Organization indicates that the crowded churches and synagogues of early autumn had by early November returned to their pre-Sept. 11 attendance levels.

Paul Baard, a motivational psychologist who teaches at Fordham University's Graduate School of Business, thinks churches have blown an opportunity.

After Sept. 11, it was "extrinsic motivation" that drove people to churches, Baard told NCR Nov. 29, during the week that Gallup released its study. They came to have their fears quelled or to have profound questions answered, he said.

But many found the church was the "same old, same old," he said. "There was the same lack of relevance to their needs as that which they left years before." He called that sense of futility "amotivational." Baard, who teaches communications and management at Fordham, is not surprised that this group didn't return.

Still other non-churched people came and discovered that the church's ministers and its services offered them an opportunity to connect with God and his people. So they stayed.

The reason some congregations -- largely mega-churches with more than 2,000 members -- retained their post-Sept. 11 visitors is due to motivation, said Baard, who has done empirical research on motivation and who co-authored Motivating Your Church (Crossroad Publishing, 2001).

Baard calls motivation "the energy behind our doing." It is intrinsic or self-motivation -- the "I-really-want-to-be-here-doing-this" kind -- that stimulates higher levels of attendance, of giving and volunteering, he said.

The reason mega-churches such as Willow Creek in Illinois and Saddlebrook in California, both evangelical Protestant congregations, became "mega" is because they met certain psychological needs in people, the researcher-psychologist said.

The need for autonomy -- to have influence, and to be free of pressure from a member of the clergy or a church worker -- is a key factor in building intrinsic motivation, Baard said.

People want to learn new things about God. Their attitude is, "I'm either growing or I'm going," he said.

Overall the need for feeling related is what keeps people coming back. Without a sense of mutual caring among parishioners, few will stay. "It's like in `Cheers,'" Baard said. "I want to go where everybody knows my name."

Baard, who was raised Catholic, is an evangelical lay leader of a Protestant church in Manhasset, N.Y. The church has 300 registered members, 49 percent of them reared as Catholics. The church counts 500 to 600 weekly attendees.

Baard's research has shown that to the degree that churches meet basic motivational needs, people attend more frequently, give at higher levels, offer their services more often and even in some cases go on to full-time ministries. His studies have also shown that church size, denomination and the personality of a congregation are not significant factors. Across the Christian spectrum, he has found growing, thriving churches from storefronts to great cathedrals.

[Rome2000]

Catholics commit a Mortal Sin when they don't attend mass.

?

The Catholic church evidences a direct lineage to Jesus Christ.

Protestants and Moozlims for that matter are "anything goes".

At least Scientologists and their ilk are original.

[Land of the Irish]

I'm glad for you. You're very fortunate.

[MizzouTigerRepublican]

Could it be that young boys are now staying away from the Catholic church in fear of an encounter with the pedophile priest? sarcasm...

Seriously though people may not be going as much after the big scandal with the Catholic church allowing priests to molest children then covering it up or paying off the victims

[potlatch]

I'm not sure how to take your reply, a 'jibe', 'sarcasm'? Hopefully not as I was just stating a fact.

[Mo1]

While it is up from earlier this year, that 45% figure among Catholics is 29 percentage points lower than the 74% recorded when this question was first asked in 1955.

They are comparing today's numbers with 1955???

Times were different and whole lot of things happened in the process

[Rome2000]

Only moron parents let their children overnight with Michael Jackson and priests.

That being said,I have a white salamander I'd like to sell you.

[Mo1]

The large church here (with the eleven Masses on weekends) does!
Also 24/7 Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Same for my parrish .. we have 2 churches ... and on the holidays if you don't get there real early, you won't get a seat

[Rome2000]

I'm not sure how to take your reply, a 'jibe', 'sarcasm'? Hopefully not as I was just stating a fact.

As far as I'm concerned, there are no "facts" when it comes to religion.

That why I'm agnostic.

But some religions are pathetically bogus

Islam and the National Council of Churches comes to mind.

[Salvation]

**on the holidays if you don't get there real early, you won't get a seat**

Our midnight Mass starts at 11:00 with caroling at 10:30. If you aren't there by 10:15 you stand! Church is totally stuffed! And the same for the three other Masses at my church. (And believe me, I have attended all four Masses, one of them Hispanic.)

[wimpycat]

Look at you both, engaged in a "MY church is better than YOUR church" pissing contest. In light of the subject (Jesus) this sort of infantile 'debating style' looks particularly ridiculous.

[onyx]

I've been going to Mass everyday and I'll continue going everyday through Christmas as a promise to a dear Monsignor. I must admit, it takes a special effort, but I've yet to find a better way to begin each new day. :)

[iranger]

"there are no "facts" when it comes to religion."

So do you deny the historical figure Jesus ever exhisted then?

[tbird5]

"I was curious about your reply to tbird5. Catholics commit a Mortal Sin when they don't attend mass. I don't believe the same is true of Protestant churches. Correct me if I'm wrong."

THIS is my point exactly...why all the fuss?

[potlatch]

But some religions are pathetically bogus

Well there are rules or laws to follow in just about everything. The Commandments are the ones Christians try to follow. The Catholic is just a little stricter in its rules.

[WackyKat]

Look at you both, engaged in a "MY church is better than YOUR church" pissing contest. In light of the subject (Jesus) this sort of infantile 'debating style' looks particularly ridiculous.

Many Traditionalist Catholics think that Protestants "aren't really Christian" and are going to H#ll, while many Fundamentalist Protestants think that Catholics "aren't really Christian" and are going to H#ll

The spectacle is both hilarious and a little pathetic

[potlatch]

Bump for that. I should have included you in my reply!

[wimpycat]

More pathetic than hilarious, really.

I'm Southern Baptist and I don't think that those who cling to the Whore of Babylon...er, I mean Catholics, are going to hell...necessarily.

DISCLAIMER: THIS HAS BEEN A JOKE. THIS WAS ONLY A JOKE. IF IT HAD BEEN A REAL STATEMENT, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED OF, ETC. ETC.

(I really am Southern Baptist, though.)

[Rome2000]

Protestants were justifiably pissed over indulgences 500 years ago, but seem silly and supportive of horrid leftist personages like Howard Dean and Ho Chi MIn.

The split will be reversed in our lifetimes.

[potlatch]

I checked back through, and saw only one earlier comment #5 by tbird5, which stated a simple fact, no arguing at all??

[Rome2000]

So do you deny the historical figure Jesus ever exhisted then?

Jesus had to have existed, but I draw the line at Joseph Smith.

[wimpycat]

It's not a simple fact. It's a gross exaggeration. The term "Protestants" encompasses a very wide variety of beliefs. There are lots of Protestants who think they'll go to hell for not attending church, or even worse, for not attending the "right" church.

[potlatch]

This was tbirds only comment #5, until a simple one to me;

"Catholics have to go to mass every Sunday. Protestants don't have to attend services weekly. This is sad for all those that call themselves Catholic."

I just can not find that to be a gross exaggeration of anything!! I have never known that Protestants HAVE to attend weekly services.

[WackyKat]

Protestants were justifiably pissed over indulgences 500 years ago, but seem silly and supportive of horrid leftist personages like Howard Dean and Ho Chi MIn.

If you think that Protestants are "leftist" you must not know many of them, and you certainly don't live in the South

Many Protestants I know denounce Catholics as being "leftist"

See what I said about the feud being funny?

[Salvation]

Indeed a wonderful addition to every day. God bless you!

Merry Christmas!

[liberty or death]

We all have a direct lineage to Jesus. He died on the cross to forgive all sins. Each individual has a direct line to him just by bowing and confessing to him. War and death are all that religions can claim throughout history because their leaders foolishly claim to be the heir to a mystical lineage or some other such nonsense.

[Guelph4ever]

Quick question from the worst kind of "Papist" there is: a convert (yes, I *willingly* left a Protestant church for the *fun* of confession and penance):

a) Do you really believe that the herald of Christ was named John the Southern Baptist?

and

b) Do you really think Jesus & the apostles drank grape juice at the Last Supper?

Q: What do you call that little window in the back of a liquor store?
A: The Baptist window!

-> There are 3 fundamental truths about religion: Jews don't recognize Jesus as the Son of God, Protestants don't recognize the Pope as the Vicar of Christ, and Baptists don't recognize each other at the bar on Saturday nights.

THESE HAVE BEEN JOKES, ONLY JOKES, AND NOTHING BUT JOKES, SO HELP ME GOD.

(made in honor of a great Baptist preacher [4-u Bro. Bill] who always had a Baptist joke on hand)

P.S. -Were you aware that the Baptist University of Baylor in Waco, Texas (oldest one in the state) has been trying to get rid of their president, a former Baptist preacher, FOR: (get this,) BEING TOO BAPTIST. Too repeat, it is a BAPTIST university, founded by the BAPTIST church. I was outraged.

Anyway, sorry, let the serious stuff continue...