National Parish Inventory

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) works with other national Catholic organizations and dioceses around the country to maintain a  database of Catholic parishes in the United States. The database helps bishops, diocesan planners, pastors, and others see what parish ministry looks like in a  variety of pastoral situations and the information is held in trust as a service to the Church. 

CARA, a national Catholic research organization, serves as the steward of this information for the dioceses and eparchies of the United States. Online collection of this information allows parishes to respond to a single, standard set of questions one time only.

As with all of CARA's work, this is strictly a Church service and not a commercial venture. CARA acts not as the owner of this data, but as its steward for the  dioceses and parishes it represents in a way that fully respects Catholic ecclesiology and canon law. 

Financing Catholic Parishes in the United States: A Regional and National Comparision.  This research report is based on data from the 2001 National Parish Inventory.  Data from nearly 4,000 responding parishes demonstrate that the average cost to operate parishes in the United States declines as the number of registered households increases.  Thus, larger Catholic parishes can operate efficiently, despite the often publicized fact that Catholics give less in their Sunday collections than Protestants in their typically much smaller congregations.  This report is available for downloading as a PDF file.  You must have the free Adobe Reader software on your computer to read this file.  To download the free Adobe Reader software, click here