Catholic Parishes of the 21st Century

In the Catholic Church the local parish is where members experience religion firsthand. It is there that they worship, are educated in the faith, receive their sacraments, and form community. All parishes are complex social organizations, combining varying elements of leadership, finances, worship styles, community outreach programs, and approaches to religious education, while being populated by diverse generational cohorts and ethnic groups, each with their own concerns and traditions. Nevertheless they are all members of the universal Church. While all parishes share some underlying commonalities, they are all are different. It is vitally important that church leaders understand the reality of local parish life. A seminal moment in the study of U.S. Catholic parish life came with the publication in the 1980s of a series of reports from the groundbreaking Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life. Much has changed in the last 30 years. Some of the topics that were not considered then (the mobility of Catholics, increasing cultural diversity, and the increase in lay leadership) have attained new significance and deserve an in-depth look. The authors employ data from a variety of recently completed studies to both update and expand on the Notre Dame Study. The data include factual information and parishioner opinions on parish activities. Like the Notre Dame Study, these findings will probably surprise many and hopefully contribute to the conversation about the way parishes can better serve their members and the wider parish community.