Portrait of the American Catholic Convert: Strength in New Numbers

[rug]

Nineteen Sixty-four is a research blog for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University edited by Mark M. Gray. CARA is a non-profit research center that conducts social scientific studies about the Catholic Church. Founded in 1964, CARA has three major dimensions to its mission: to increase the Catholic Church's self understanding; to serve the applied research needs of Church decision-makers; and to advance scholarly research on religion, particularly Catholicism. .

4.11.2014
Mark M. Gray



Do you want to know the best way to ensure your child grows up to be a faithful, knowledgeable, and active Catholic? It’s simple: 1) Raise them as a Protestant AND 2) Only let them date Catholics and promise to pay all their wedding and honeymoon expenses if they get married in the Catholic Church. That second step is key.

All kidding aside (...that was not a serious attempt at Catholic parenting advice!), there are hundreds of thousands of non-Catholic parents in the United States today raising children who will one day grow up to be extraordinary Catholics (...as shown below). Some will join in the coming week as the Catholic Church in the United States will welcome more than 100,000 new adult Catholics into the faith through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA).

There aren’t a lot of data sets available to study this sub-group. One notable exception is Dean R. Hoge’s Converts, Dropouts, Returnees: A Study of Religious Change Among Catholics (1981). Hoge, a Presbyterian sociologist, noted that “past research on Catholic converts and dropouts is sketchy, since few studies have been done” (p. 8). In recent years much new attention has been given to the dropouts—those who are raised in the faith but do not remain Catholic as adults (1, 2, 3, 4). In this post we focus on the converts joining the Church by compiling all of the recent research available to produce a robust and often surprising portrait.

Hoge cites a 1954 study by Joseph H. Fichter, S.J. that estimated 75% of adult converts came to the Church through an interfaith marriage. In his own data collection in the 1980s Hoge found the most common path to conversion was marriage to a Catholic and this switch was most often facilitated by the spouse around the time of marriage. More recently, Pew’s Faith in Flux study indicates that a similar dynamic is still occurring today. As shown in the table below, 72% of Catholic converts cite marriage as an important reason for their switch in faith. The second most commonly cited important reason is finding a religion they like more. Many appear to “find” this religion by marrying a Catholic. No other factors appear to be as important as marriage and liking the faith.



http://nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2014/04/portrait-of-american-catholic-convert.html

[goldent]

1. What I am surprised about are the people I've met

Last edited Sun Apr 13, 2014, 11:50 PM - Edit history (1)

who converted to Catholicism, the faith of their spouse, many years after they were married. I would have expected that if they don't convert at the start, they never will, but that is not always the case.

Of course the stereotype that people who join the RCC as adults know much more about the Church than cradle Catholics is most of the time true.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

2. I used to participate in the RCIA program

I particularly remember one man, born and raised Catholic, who was the sponsor for his wife. He turned out to be remarkably ignorant of his own religion. In one of the early sessions, he said "Just who is this Jesus?" You could almost hear the jaws hitting the floor.

[sarisataka]

3. My wife converted two years ago

Reasons 1-5 and 10 applied to her.

I wouldn't say I learned much while she did RCIA but I remembered many things I was taught growing up. It did help revitalize and refresh my faith helping her though the process.