National Catholic Organizations and Institutions

Data Gathering for National Organizations: Two Case Studies

I) When the Secreatriat of Child and Youth Protection of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops needed data to document the response of bishops to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, they came to CARA. CARA contacts the 195 diocese and eparchies whose bishops and eparchs belong to the USCCB as well as all clerical religious institutes that belong to the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and gathers data from them each year on the number of allegations of clergy sexual abuse against minors as well as the financial costs of responding to these allegations and implementing the Charter. CARA compiles a summary report of the data that is incorporated into the Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which is published by the USCCB. For this project particularly, CARA’s adherence to the strictest academic standards of confidentiality and anonymity are strongly enforced so that reporting dioceses and the USCCB are comfortable sharing these important data with CARA researchers. A Twenty Year Summary Report on this project was published in January 2025.

II) CARA has conducted three studies commissioned by the McGrath Institute at Notre Dame University. The first evaluated satisfaction and challenges among recently ordained priests in the U.S. The second assessed sexual harassment, abuse, and misconduct at U.S. seminaries. The third evaluated the Church’s practices in assessing the suitability of candidates for the priesthood. All three reports are available in CARA’s publications section of our website here.

CARA provides similar data gathering services for several other national organizations. These regular data collection projects allow these organizations to track trends over time as well as have the most up-to-date data they may need. If you are interested in annual, semi-annual or regular data collection for your organization, contact senior research associate Dr. Mark Gray.