CENTER FOR APPLIED RESEARCH IN THE APOSTOLATE
Placing Social Science Research at the Service of the Catholic Church Since 1964
Latest News
The Impact of Marian Devotions on Vocations
This report presents findings from a survey of U.S. bishops, diocesan priests, permanent deacons, deacon directors, and major superiors of men and women about the impact of Marian devotion on their ecclesial vocations. The survey was designed by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University in collaboration with the Diocese of Saginaw. Altogether there were 1,091 respondents.
Latest News
Portrait of the Permanent Diaconate
CARA has released its most current profile of the Permanent Diaconate in the United States. Thirty-seven percent of permanent deacons in the world serve in the United States. During the 2024 calendar year, 393 new permanent deacons were ordained in the responding U.S. arch/dioceses. At the same time, 545 deacons retired from active ministry and another 361 deacons died. As is the case with priests in the United States, there are not enough new permanent deacons being ordained to make up for the numbers who are retiring from active ministry and dying each year. Five archdioceses have the largest numbers of permanent deacons in the U.S.: Chicago, Atlanta, New York, San Antonio, and Galveston-Houston.
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.
We meet your research needs
Parishes | Dioceses | Religious Institutes | Catholic Media and Publishers | Catholic Schools | Catholic Colleges & Campus Ministries | National Organizations
CARA can help you with surveys, focus groups, interviews, demographics, mapping, planning studies, trend analysis, projections and forecasting, program reviews, market research, data collection and database creation and maintenance, archival research, and pre-test/post-test experiments.
CARA's team includes researchers and staff with degrees in sociology, political science, city planning, education, communications, business, marketing, philanthropic studies, religious studies, and church ministry. We're here to help you solve problems, understand issues, plan for the future, and be more effective.
Connect with us elsewhere online on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Substack, and Blogger.
