CENTER FOR APPLIED RESEARCH IN THE APOSTOLATE
Placing Social Science Research at the Service of the Catholic Church Since 1964
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Note: Some countries are too small to display a data label. All visible countries have (2025) or had (2013) voting eligible cardinals.
The 2025 Conclave
CARA has an abundance of Catholic Church data in our archives. Feel free to contact is for information about the Church in the United States and the world as preparations for the Conclave are underway and after this begins. Our most accessible data is available under our Frequently Requested Statistics page. However, we also have many other collections you can request from. The image to the right compares the voting eligible cardinals in 2013 and 2025.
Latest News
Responding ordinands to diocesan priesthood in 2025 were, on average, 17 years old when they first considered a vocation to the priesthood.
Ordination Class of 2025
In December 2005, the Secretariat for Vocations and Priestly Formation (now the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) to conduct an annual survey of responding ordinands to the priesthood. CARA recently completed the survey for new ordinands in 2025. Read the findings from the full report below.
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Summary of 20 Years of Data Collected Annually for the CARA Survey of Allegations and Costs
CARA has published a comprehensive report compiling 20 years of data from U.S. Catholic dioceses, eparchies, and religious communities of men detailing the allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests, deacons, and religious brothers, as well as the financial expenditures for costs related to those allegations and ongoing efforts to protect and safeguard youth.
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