By CISA
WASHINGTON DC, JANUARY 31, 2023 (CISA)- Nigeria and Kenya have been ranked as first and second countries respectively with the highest number of Mass attendance among adult Catholics in the world, according to data released by Nineteen Sixty-Four research blog for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA, on January 23, 2022.
“Among these, weekly or more frequent Mass attendance is highest among adult self-identified Catholics in Nigeria (94%), Kenya (73%), and Lebanon (69%). The next segment of countries, where half or more Catholics attend every week includes the Philippines (56%), Colombia (54%), Poland (52%), and Ecuador (50%). Fewer than half, but a third or more attend every week in Bosnia and Herzegovina (48%), Mexico (47%), Nicaragua (45%), Bolivia (42%), Slovakia (40%), Italy (34%), and Peru (33%),” the report stated.
The results of the research, according to Dr Mark M. Gray, a Research Associate Professor at Georgetown University and the Director of CARA Catholic Polls, do not reflect every country in the world that has a Catholic population but is based on data from the World Values Survey (WVS) that has information for 36 countries with large Catholic populations.
The research also found that there is no correlation between an individual claiming to be deeply religious and Mass attendance.
“There are countries where there is a close relationship between answers to both questions including the Netherlands, Argentina, Ecuador, the Philippines, Kenya, and Nigeria. But for many other countries, their placement is far from the regression line. Lebanon, for example, has very high Mass attendance, comparatively speaking, but the share of Catholics there considering themselves to be religious is substantially lower in comparison to other countries. Ninety-seven percent of Catholics in Uruguay consider themselves to be religious persons, yet only 23% of Catholics there attend Mass weekly or more often,” the report revealed.
According to the Research released by CARA, countries, where Catholics are most likely to consider themselves to be religious, are Nigeria (95%), Albania (94%), Slovakia (93%), the Czech Republic (92%), Italy (92%), Lithuania (92%), Kenya (92%), Colombia (92%), Bolivia (91%), and Poland (90%).
Founded in 1964, CARA is a non-profit research centre that conducts social scientific studies about the Catholic Church. It 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.
