A new CARA study reveals that the total weekly offerings at parishes have risen 14 percent over the past 5 years. This seems, at first, like a good thing. But additional statistics from the report titled The Changing Face of U.S. Catholic Parishes reveal a more complicated picture of the state of the Catholic parish today. The increase in weekly donations doesn’t necessarily mean that registered parishioners are digging deeper into their pockets (the average total weekly offering per parish is $9,200, which equals $9.57 per registered household), but may be a result of the fact that the number of registered parishioners per parish is growing, as more and more parishes are shut down.

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WASHINGTON (CNS) — More U.S. Catholics are attending Masses at fewer parishes staffed by a rapidly declining corps of priests, according to a new report on “The Changing Face of U.S. Catholic Parishes.”

Produced by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate for the Emerging Models of Pastoral Leadership project of five national Catholic ministerial organizations, the report documents what it calls the “supersizing” of U.S. Catholic parish life.

“Bigger parishes, more Masses and ministries in languages other than English are becoming the norm,” said a news release on the report released July 18.

CARA found that the number of Catholic parishes has declined by 1,359 since the year 2000 to 17,784 in 2010, representing a 7.1 percent decrease. The 2010 number is roughly equal to the 17,637 U.S. parishes in 1965 and 1,836 fewer than the peak number of U.S. parishes in 1990.

The average number of registered households in each U.S. parish grew to 1,168, and the average number of people attending Mass at Catholic parishes was 1,110 in 2010, up from an average of 966 a decade earlier….

One-third of all U.S. parishes have more than 1,201 registered households, while the percentage of parishes with 200 or fewer households dropped from 24 percent in 2000 to 15 percent in 2010. Smaller parishes are more likely to be closed or consolidated, but they also have higher average Mass attendance than larger parishes.

In terms of individual registered parishioners, the average for U.S. parishes was 3,277, an increase of 45 percent over the 2,260 average a decade ago, CARA said, adding that 40 percent of the growth in registered parishioners in U.S. parishes between 2005 and 2010 was among Hispanics.

Among other information gleaned from the report:

— The total operating revenue in the average U.S. parish is $695,000, exceeding average expenses of $626,500 by $68,500. But 30 percent of parishes said their expenses exceed their revenue.
— Total average weekly offering has grown by more than 14 percent in U.S. parishes over the past five years, to about $9,200, or $9.57 per registered household.
— There are approximately 38,000 lay ecclesial ministers serving in U.S. parishes who are paid for at least 20 hours of work weekly. It is estimated that the U.S. church is adding about 790 new lay ecclesial ministers to parish staffs each year.
— The total number of priests, men and women religious and deacons in the United States was 117,080 in 2010, a decline of 41 percent from the 197,172 in those categories in 1980.
— The total number of people on U.S. parish staffs — including ministry staff and volunteers, as well as nonministry staff and volunteers such as bookkeepers, groundskeepers, cooks, etc. — is estimated to be 168,448. The average parish has 9.5 staff members, with 5.4 individuals in ministry positions.
— More than three-quarters (78 percent) of parishioners in U.S. parishes are non-Hispanic white and 13 percent are Hispanic. Four percent are black, African-American or African; 3 percent Asian, Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; and 1 percent are American Indian or Alaskan Native.

Have you seen evidence of these changes in your own parish?

Kerry Weber joined the staff of America in October 2009. Her writing and multimedia work have since earned several awards from the Catholic Press Association, and in 2013 she reported from Rwanda as a recipient of Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship. Kerry is the author of Mercy in the City: How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned, and Keep Your Day Job (Loyola Press) and Keeping the Faith: Prayers for College Students (Twenty-Third Publications). A graduate of Providence College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously worked as an editor for Catholic Digest, a local reporter, a diocesan television producer, and as a special-education teacher on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.