Church census tracks Mass attendance, collection trends

By Lara Pickford-Gordon

snrwriter.camsel@catholictt.org

It’s no secret there are empty pews at Masses and Services across the country. Exactly how many persons are not attending Mass to receive the Eucharist, the “source and summit of Christian life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church)?

The Office for Pastoral Planning and Development (OPPD) is trying to track the trends.

A census was conducted this year on four weekends in Lent. General head counts were on: February 28 and March 1, March 14 and 15, and 21 and 22. Data on age/sex was collected on March 7 and 8.

“The objective of the count is to determine what are the levels of Mass attendance both at the parish level, vicariate level and the diocesan level. How many people are attending Mass and to get an idea of the collections that are given by those persons,” said Gary Tagallie of the OPPD.

The OPPD, which was established in 2018, has been spearheading the collection of data for the Archdiocese since 2019. Surveys, however, were conducted prior in 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013 and 2017. In the interval between the survey done in 2019 and 2023, figures show a drop of thousands of congregants.

Tagallie explained: “The average Mass attendance from 2019 during Lent was 39,404; for the same period during Lent in 2023 was 31,804 and we can compare those.”

Tagallie said Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon took the decision for surveys to be conducted biennially. COVID-19 prevented this in 2021, so it was conducted in 2023. A count was due last year based on the biennial schedule.

Tagallie said: “The fact that we had all these sacred sites and pilgrimages to these sacred sites by parishes and so on, and all that was going on in Jubilee Year, we decided not to have the census in Lent. It would have really distorted some of the figures. You would not have gotten a true picture of attendance at Masses and parishes.”

Tagallie said Archbishop Gordon still wanted to get an idea of attendance, so a census was done last October. It showed a headcount of 28,257. Tagallie said, “We did it on two weekends, not the normal four weekends. It did tell us something, attendance out of the Lenten period. The only time you know for sure is if you do a count and you do it over a number of years”.

He acknowledged that the counts have been showing a downward trend. “The headcount has been done since 2007 so, we see a decline in Mass attendance from 2007 to 2025, or I would say 2023, the Lenten period.”

Since 2023, parishes have been entering information from their “source sheets” to digital forms online. They were asked to input data the week after the Mass. Tagallie reported improvements in parish responses over time. “I think there is a buy-in, in terms of the parishes response to getting the data, collecting it, putting the systems in place at the parish level,” he said.

For the headcount, parishes had to appoint parish census coordinators, Mass coordinators and volunteers to do the count. Tagallie has received positive feedback on the conduct of the census but there were some congregants who had questions when the demographic count was done.

“Some feedback we got people [were asking] ‘why we want to know age groups? Why should we stand like school children, for age groups and male/ female’,” he said.

On the question of why Mass attendance was declining, Tagallie said more research is required. The Archdiocese does not have a research department but he suggested research could be undertaken by persons studying at the Regional Seminary of St John Vianney and the Uganda Martyrs, Mt St Benedict, or students pursuing degrees in anthropology or sociology.

He said parishes, including those streaming Masses and Services can also seek to answer the question by doing their own counts of online viewing.

Commenting on the accuracy of the headcount data, Tagallie said there were some errors detected from the census last October. These were corrected by verifying with source documents submitted and contacting parishes directly. He added that generally in any count done there can be errors “in inputting the data”.

The surveys also recorded the average collection per person/per week at Masses. It was $17.95 in 2019, and $18.93 in 2023.

The benefits of data

Tagallie highlighted a paucity of demographic information on Catholics in T&T such as the number of families in parishes. He said during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020—2021, data was collected on over 3,000 families but this did not continue. Information on sex, birth dates and sacraments received were collected through parishes.

Tagallie indicated demographic information can be useful to parishes in the areas of hospitality such as personalising birthday greetings. “People feel good that the parish knows that my birthday is tomorrow and I get a card on that day”.

Information can also assist with programme planning. He said if parishes know how many families have children ages 0-5, they could plan for the First Communion cohort and send reminders to families.

“It is amazing what we should be doing, things to keep people, to kind of stop the attrition,” Tagallie said.