CENTER SECTION: CATHOLICS AND THE NEW MEDIA
Statistics and the New Media
Mark M. Gray  |  Fall 2009

It is a twenty-first century reality that most young adult Catholics spend significantly more time online than they do in the pews.

According to national surveys of adult Catholics conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, only about fifteen percent of Catholics between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine attend Catholic Mass every week. CARA surveys also estimate that about eight percent of the adult population in the United States was once Catholic but no longer self-identifies as such. The average age at which these former Catholics left the church is twenty-one. Seventy-four percent of those who have left the church did so before the age of thirty.

If many young adults are not going to church regularly, can the church go to them online? In January 2009, the Vatican took an important first step in doing so with the creation of a channel on YouTube (www.youtube.com/user/vatican), which is one of the fastest-growing and most popular sites on the Internet.

In a video posted on the Vatican’s channel, Pope Benedict XVI characterizes YouTube as a new way to speak of God, noting, “When numerous young people search for answers and meaning in their lives you must find new ways to spread voices and images of hope through the ever evolving communication system that surrounds our planet.”

According to Quantcast, an Internet traffic analysis service, more than 46 million youth and young adults (under the age of thirty-five) visit YouTube in the United States every month. More than 10 million of these young visitors are estimated to be Catholic.

One of the most viewed Catholic-content videos on YouTube in April 2009 was for a campaign produced by the dioceses of Brooklyn and Rockville Centre, N.Y., entitled “Get clean from the inside out with Soul Wow!” More than 100,000 people watched this YouTube parody of a television infomercial that made a pitch for Catholics to go to confession.

Recent CARA surveys indicate that the Catholic videos on YouTube are one of many types of content produced for the Internet that are vying for the attention of Catholics, young and old alike.

Only eleven percent of adult Catholics (representing about 5.5 million individuals) said they had visited a religious or spiritual Web site in the last six months. Respondents were more likely to have watched a religious or spiritual television program (twenty-eight percent), read a religious or spiritual magazine or newspaper (twenty-eight percent), read a religious or spiritual book (twenty-three percent) or listened to a religious or spiritual radio program (twelve percent).

Just one percent of adult Catholics say they have watched video on the Internet that is either religious or spiritual in nature. In contrast, twenty percent indicated they watched video on the Internet that was related to entertainment and fourteen percent said they watched video content related to general news and information.

It’s not that Catholics aren’t using the Internet. Instead CARA surveys indicate that they are using the Internet to access content that is not related to their religion. The Internet has simply yet to become a primary source of content about Catholicism for Catholics. Currently, there are no Catholic content sites that draw a significant proportion of the Catholic population in the United States.

Only five percent (equivalent to 2.5 million adults) of Catholics say they have visited a Web site for a Catholic parish in the last six months. The same percentage say they have visited an inspirational religious or spiritual Web site (for example, a site that provides prayers, Bible readings, or spiritual reflections). Three percent have visited their diocesan Web site, and three percent have visited a site for a Catholic school. Only two percent have visited the Web site for the Vatican in the last six months. Catholics are even less likely to say they have visited Web sites related to a charity or social agency, religious news, a religious message board or Web sites for specific publications or frequently searched Catholic online sites such as Catholic Online, MassTimes, or CatholicWeb.

The list of the top Catholic Web sites in terms of visitors (Catholics and non-Catholics) in the United States, as measured by Quantcast and Google Trends in March and April 2009, includes some of the Web sites noted above.

New Advent (newadvent.org) is the number-one ranked Catholic-content Web site for the United States (in the top 2,000 sites visited), with more than 850,000 visitors per month and 3.5 million page views. This site attracts a younger audience than most Catholic-content sites. This may be due to its Catholic Encyclopedia, which is a user-friendly tool for doing academic research about Catholicism. According to Quantcast estimates, for every 100 visitors to New Advent who are over the age of fifty, there are an estimated 330 visitors under fifty years old. Visitors do not spend a lot of time on the site, making only about four page-views per person visiting. Visitors to the New Advent site are also likely to have searched for the following terms using Google: Catholic encyclopedia, popes, Catholic saints, beatitudes, the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed, EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network), Martin Luther, and Bible.

Catholic Online (catholic.org) is the number-two ranked Catholic-content Web site for the United States (in the top 3,000 sites visited) with more than 650,000 visitors per month and 37 million page views. Like New Advent, this site attracts a younger audience than most Catholic-content sites. This may be due to its top listing in Google for the search term “Catholic.” For every 100 visitors to Catholic Online who are over the age of fifty, there are an estimated 321 visitors under fifty years old. Unlike New Advent, this Web site has more return visitors, and those visiting view more pages on the site. There are an estimated fifty-seven page views for every person who visits the site. In addition to providing original content, Catholic Online is a content and news aggregator. Visitors are presented with a wide array of links to content on the front page. Visitors are also likely to have gone to other Web sites related to religion, politics and commentary, schools and universities, children’s education, and nonprofits.

The Web site for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (usccb.org) is the number-three ranked Catholic-content Web site for the United States (in the top 4,500 sites visited) with more than 440,000 visitors per month and 8.4 million page views. Visitors to this site are more likely than those visiting many other popular Catholic-content Web sites to be college educated and reside in households earning at least $60,000 per year. For each visitor to the USCCB Web site there are nineteen page views. Visitors are also likely to have gone to Web sites of pro-life organizations, the Vatican, and Catholic news sites.

The American Catholic Web site (americancatholic.org) is the fourth-ranked Catholic-content Web site in the United States (in the top 5,800 sites visited). Produced by the Franciscans and St. Anthony Messenger Press, this site is visited by more than 300,000 people nationally each month (an average of six page views per visit). American Catholic is among the top Google results for a search of “Catholic” and contains a variety of content including information about saints, Catholic news, a place for posting prayer requests, audio programs, and movie reviews. Visitors are also likely to have gone to Web sites of other Catholic print publications.

Rounding out the top five is the Web site for the Vatican (vatican.va), which has been online since 1996. The Vatican homepage is visited by more than 300,000 people in the United States each month (in the top 5,800 sites visited). The average visitor views ten pages per visit. More than seven in ten visitors are college educated, and two-thirds are age thirty-five or older.

Other popular Catholic-content sites include Catholic Answers (catholic.com; 291,000 U.S. visitors per month), Catholic News Agency (catholicnewsagency.com; 181,000 U.S. visitors per month), EWTN (ewtn.org; 167,000 U.S. visitors per month), and ZENIT (zenit.org; 154,000 U.S. visitors per month).

A few sites are notable for being very successful at attracting a youthful audience. For example, Catholic Match (catholicmatch.com), a site where single Catholics can meet other single Catholics, is the fifteenth most popular Catholic-content site in the United States. The site has about 78,000 visitors per month, with an average of nearly 200 page views per visitor during this period. More than a third of visitors to the site are between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four, an additional four in ten are ages thirty-six to forty-nine. Many of the visitors to this site go to other sites devoted to Catholic singles.

Another site most likely to be visited by younger Catholics is Catholic Mom (catholicmom.com), where nearly nine in ten visitors are under the age of fifty. This site, dedicated to “faith, family, and fun,” attracts 68,000 visitors per month. This site attracts the most female-dominated audience of any Catholic-content site.

By comparison the Web site for the Knights of Columbus (kofc.org) attracts the most male audience (also approximately 68,000 visitors per month). Seven in ten of visitors to the site are age thirty-five or older.

Most of the highest-circulation Catholic print publications do not have Web sites with heavy traffic. In this respect, what is evolving online is not something that is typically an extension of traditional Catholic-content providers. Yet even the most visited Catholic-content sites are dwarfed by YouTube. Perhaps the future of Catholicism in the new media is to place content on sites that garner high traffic, such as YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. These sites attract youthful audiences and indeed may offer the greatest potential to fulfill the promise of “a new way to speak of God.”

Mark Gray Ph.D. is a research associate and Director of Catholic Polls at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.