Faith Communities Today Survey (FACT) 2010, Roman Catholic
DOI
10.17605/OSF.IO/PE43ACitation
Dudley, C., & Roozen, D. (2022, April 19). Faith Communities Today Survey (FACT) 2010, Roman Catholic.Summary
The Faith Communities Today (FACT) 2010 national survey brings together 26 individual surveys of congregations. Twenty-four were conducted by or for partner denominations and faith groups, representing 32 of the country's largest denominations and traditions. The common core questionnaire of the survey replicates more than 150 questions from the 2000, 2005 and 2008 surveys, plus a special section on the 2008 recession. This dataset represents the results from the survey of Roman Catholic parishes in the United States conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).In January 2011, CARA surveyed a national random sample of Catholic parishes, as part of the Cooperative Congregations Studies Partnership.
The overall study was coordinated by the Cooperative Congregations Studies Partnership (CCSP), an interfaith group of religious researchers and leaders. CCSP consists of members from 25-plus different faith groups, working in conjunction with Hartford Seminary and the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
CARA modified the generic Christian survey to better fit the faith and practice of Catholic parishes and added a few questions particular to Catholic parish life. Each survey was to be completed by the pastor or other person with primary responsibility for that parish.
The survey asked parishes about all aspects of parish life, including history and location, worship attendance and style, characteristics of attenders, programs and ministries, mission and identity, and leadership and finances. In particular, the researchers wanted to learn what impact the recession of 2008-2009 had had on parish finances as well as how much it had impacted parishioners.
Data File
Cases: 391Variables: 274
Weight Variable: None
Data Collection
2010Original Survey (Instrument)
FACT Roman Catholic Codebook (2010)Funded By
The Hartford Institute for Religion ResearchHartford Seminary
Through a grant from The Lilly Endowment, Inc. and the cooperating religious bodies.
Collection Procedures
CARA mailed a survey packet to 3,500 randomly selected parishes in fall 2010. After repeated follow-ups to the parishes selected for the sample, a total of 391 parishes responded to the survey by Jan. 31, 2011. A total of 74 surveys were returned to CARA as undeliverable and were removed from the original sample. This represents a response rate of 11 percent of the 3,435 parishes that were included in the sample. A sample of 391 parishes from a total of approximately 18,000 parishes in the United States (assuming random distribution of the sample) yields a margin of sampling error of +/-4.9 percentage points.Sampling Procedures
The Faith Communities Today data brought together 26 individual surveys of congregations representing 41 denominations and faith groups. Project participants developed a common core questionnaire. Groups then conducted their own, typically mail, surveys of a sample of congregations. Usually, the congregation's leader completed the questionnaire.The project's common core questionnaire includes more than 200 questions covering six broad areas:
* Worship and identity
* Location and facilities
* Internal and mission-oriented programs
* Leadership and organizational dynamics
* Participants
* Finances
The data in this file contain the responses to the survey developed by the Roman Catholic Church to reflect the language and traditions of their church.
This survey was mailed to a random sample of Catholic parishes across the country. A total of 391 parishes responded to the Catholic version of the FACT survey.
Principal Investigators
Carl Dudley and David Roozen of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary77 Sherman Street
Hartford, Connecticut 06105
