More Evidence on U.S. Catholic Church Attendance

Hadaway, Marler, and Chaves (1993) have recently argued that U.S. weekly church attendance is about one-half the rate that is commonly accepted. Regarding Catholics, their result was based on head-count data from only 18 dioceses. The present paper is based on data from a total of 48 Catholic dioceses containing approximately 38% of U.S. Catholics. The results are the same: The weekly attendance rate in this expanded set of dioceses is 26.7%. These results lend further empirical support to the notion that church attendance rates based on self-reports are substantially inflated.

Duke Scholars

Author Mark Chaves Sociology