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CARA is a national,
non-profit,
Georgetown University affiliated 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 Church's self understanding
- to serve the applied research needs of Church
decision-makers
- to advance scholarly research on religion,
particularly Catholicism
CARA has more than 40 years of experience in quality social science
research
on the Catholic Church. We offer a range of research and consulting
services for dioceses, parishes, religious communities and institutes,
and other Catholic organizations.
CARA’s longstanding policy is
to let research findings stand on their own and never take an advocacy
position or go into areas outside its social science competence.
All CARA researchers have advanced degrees in relevant
academic disciplines
as well as pastoral experience. CARA researchers are Georgetown
faculty members and are active in the academic community publishing and
presenting research about the Catholic Church.
The CARA Inspiration: "In pastoral care, sufficient use
must be made
not only of theological principles, but also the findings of the
secular
sciences, especially of psychology and sociology, so that the faithful
may be brought to a more accurate and mature life of faith" --- The
Second
Vatican Council Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
(Gaudium Et Spes).
Although CARA is usually considered to have been a
product of the Church’s increasing openness
to science and research resulting from the Second Vatican Council (1962
to 1965), CARA’s origins go back even farther. As early as 1951 the
superiors
of U.S. missionary institutes called for a national research center to
help reshape the missioner’s role in the emerging Third World churches.
But the immediate impetus for such an organization was an article in
1961
by Richard Cardinal Cushing, on “The Modern Challenge of the Missions,”
in the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston.
Subsequently the major superiors of mission-sending orders voted about
$5,000 to evaluate the need for “A Catholic Center for Coordinated
Research
and Cooperation.” A study group chaired by Rev. Frederick McGuire, CM,
executive secretary of The Mission Secretariat and later both a
founding
CARA board member and director of development, and including CARA’s
future
first executive director, Rev. Louis J.
Luzbetak, SVD, and eight other distinguished members including men
and women religious from U.S. mission-sending societies, delivered
their
favorable report in late 1963. CARA was officially incorporated in
the District of Columbia on August
5, 1964.
CARA has been affiliated with Georgetown University
since 1989.
For more information about CARA's beginings read the following Review of Religious Research
article from 1967 by Francis X. Gannon entitled, "Bridging
the Research Gap: CARA, Response to Vatican II"
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| ..Board
of Directors |
| ..CARA
Research Team |
| ..CARA
Services |
| ..Our
Mission |
| ..Contact
CARA |
| ..Our
Story |
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CARA
Board Chairs
- Richard
Cardinal
Cushing, Honorary
First President
- John Cardinal
Cody,
1964-66
- Lawrence
Cardinal
Shehan, 1966-68
- Joseph
Cardinal Krol,
1968-70
- John Cardinal
Carberry, 1970-73
- Patrick
Cardinal
O'Boyle, 1973-75
- Humberto
Cardinal
Medeiros, 1975-83
- Most Rev.
Ernest L.
Unterkoefler,
1983-84
- Joseph
Cardinal
Bernardin, 1984-85
- Most Rev.
James W.
Malone, 1985-92
- Most Rev.
Joseph J.
Gerry, OSB, 1992-97
- Most Rev.
William B.
Friend,
1997-2003
- Most Rev. John
J.
Leibrecht, 2003-2006
- Most Rev.
Gerald F. Kicanas, 2006-
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