Religious Congregations & Membership: 2000
Media Materials—Embargoed until noon on Sept. 20, 2002

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How RCMS 2000 Relates to Other Studies Presenting Religious data
By Kenneth M. Sanchagrin, Director of the Glenmary Research Center

RCMS 2000

This project is completed only once every 10 years and is the only source of county-level data for number of adherents and churches.

Collection of data for RCMS 2000 (and previous Church Membership studies) begins using a list of religious bodies published by the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches and adds to that list of bodies from various sources. This is particularly true for non-Christian groups, “new religions,” and some small sects.

RCMS then contacts the headquarters of each group and asks them to submit data giving the number of churches (or equivalent), number of full members, and number of adherents by county for the entire United States. In a few cases, independent researchers are funded to collect this data (e.g. orthodox bodies, mega-churches. The Glenmary Research Center pays for and collects for Catholic data). In an even fewer cases county estimates are made based on scholarly studies (E.g. Muslim for 2000). Data is collected within six months before or after the census is taken. All religious bodies’ data are cross-checked in various ways and each body has an opportunity to comment on the final output.

Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches

This product is produced every year and data are obtained from religious body headquarters and some other sources like RCMS. This study presents some of the same data (number of churches, full members and “inclusive membership,”) the RCMS presents but some additional data as well. However, the data published any given year contains data submitted over a span of years by the religious bodies so that one does not have a “single snapshot” of the entire county at one point in time and the data are presented only at the national level.

Official Catholic Directory (OCD, “Kenedy Directory”

The OCD collects data from dioceses as does the GRC. It does this every year and reports data for the previous year. It reports the number of Catholics for the nation and some other subdivisions (e.g. states, dioceses) but not down to the county level. Neither does it give the number of Catholics per parish. The use of county as the unit of analysis in the RCMS 2000 makes the data more amenable to direct linkage to other data sources (e.g. U.S. census) for reasonably local to national studies.

It is also unclear as to how the OCD data are cross-checked by accuracy against census and other data sources. For example, the figures the Glenmary Research Center obtained from one diocese were significantly smaller than those reported to the OCD. An investigation showed that the bishop of the diocese directed his staff to add one-half more to the actual count of Catholics submitted to OCD to “take into account those who are Catholic but don’t belong to a parish or go to Mass regularly.”

Finally, the OCD only presents Catholic data whereas the RCMS provide comparable data for many religious bodies taken at the same time. This allows for many comparisons and analyses. One advantage of OCD data, for the units it provides data, is that it is annual and not decennial.

CARA

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) has begun to collect a great deal of data on individual parishes at the parish level. At the present time they must supplement the parish reports with data from many other sources (e.g. OCD, diocesan offices, etc.) because they do not have a complete census of parishes. It is very likely that CARA will be able to gather data on all or most parishes at a single point (even within one year) in time that would allow it to be considered “collected at the same time as the U.S. census.”

ARIS

The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) conducted by Barry Kosmin and colleagues at City University of New York is a massive telephone survey of individuals. ARIS differs from all of the above approaches in that it self-consciously uses a sample-survey (polling) approach and that it surveys individuals directly. Even more important it gets at how individuals identify themselves (i.e. it really gets at identification or preference rather than actual affiliation). It does not link the “identification” with membership in any church or group. The ARIS study reports a larger number of “Catholics” than the RCMS because many who “identify as Catholics” are not connected to a parish. Also ARIS cannot report findings down to the county level in most cases although county estimates can sometimes be made from state findings.

Additional Resources:
• Methodology and Cautions
• Key findings from study
• Key findings for specific religious bodies
• Glossary of terms
• History and background of the study
• Resource people to contact
• Listings and rankings
• Maps
• To preview 2000 study online
• To order