The Work of CARA
Did you know that Catholicism
has a higher retention rate than most other religions in the United
States? Or that between 1993 and 2013
more than 2.7 million people (about the same size as the Presbyterian Church in
the U.S.) joined the Catholic Community through the RCIA process?
These findings come from the
Center for the Applied Research in the Apostolate, or CARA. CARA is a research center in Washington D.C.
that conducts social scientific studies and collects data on the Catholic
Church in the United States. CARA
officially began in 1964 during the Second Vatican Council, but its origins go
back to 1951 when Catholic missionaries discovered the need for data to help
them serve an emerging world church.
Dr. Mary Gautier, a
sociologist with CARA, says the trends for the future of the U.S. Catholic
Church are encouraging and discouraging, “The numbers of men who are preparing
for priesthood have been very stable over the past 15 years. Even though we have been experiencing a
priest shortage, God is still calling people to vocation … it’s just that it
cannot match the number that we had in the 1950s and 60s. But, the numbers of lay formation programs in
particular diocesan funded-programs have been decreasing and I find that to be
a very disconcerting, very concerning issue because the need for formed lay
ministers is greater than ever before but the places for them to receive this
formation are decreasing.
Gautier says one of the
benefits of social science research is that it offers a broader perspective, “When
you are at a parish in the Northeast and you see nothing but grey heads around
and you read about parishes closing it feels like a death experience--it feels
like the church is declining. It’s so
life-giving to me to be able to pull back and look at the national picture and to
say ‘you don’t know what it’s like in Dallas or in Austin or in Los Angeles or
places where they are bursting at the seams because there is so much life.’”
CARA is celebrating its 50th
anniversary this month. To look at their
latest research, go to cara.georgetown.edu
