States along the southern U.S. border have experienced significant increases in their Catholic populations over the past decade. Florida saw a rise of 5.6 percentage points from 2010 to 2020, with now 1 in 5 residents identifying as Catholics. Similarly, Arizona’s Catholic share grew from 14.6% to 21.3% during the same period. The U.S. Religion Census, organized by the National Council of Churches, tracks religious affiliations, showing that Catholicism is particularly growing among Hispanic populations. The Pew Research Center indicates that the percentage of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S. increased from 29% in 2007 to an estimated 36% by the end of 2024.
Notably, this increase in Catholic membership is occurring despite a decline in the overall number of Catholic churches, which fell by 1,000 to 19,405 from a decade ago. This has resulted in larger congregations, with average parish sizes reaching 7,000 in Florida and over 10,000 in Nevada. According to Scott Thumma, co-director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, some parishes are accommodating extraordinarily large numbers of families, sometimes exceeding 30,000, often serviced by only 1 or 2 priests.
This trend is partially attributed to the financial fallout from clergy sexual abuse scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church. These scandals revealed that some clergy had abused children for decades, with attempts by leadership to cover up these incidents, leading to a decline in church numbers while fostering a growth in congregant size.
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