[Alex Murphy]

The total number of American Catholics depends largely on what you think it takes to be a Catholic, with the numbers dropping as the required level of commitment increases. It takes very little effort to self-identify as a Catholic, so the Pew Research Center’s survey sets the Catholic population high at 75 million. The Catholic Research Forum has more rigorous standards, defining Catholics as people who are baptized into the church and arrange for a Catholic funeral. By this measure, there are approximately 68 million American Catholics. Finally, some demographers count only people who register at a church or regularly attend Mass. The U.S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study, which asked local church leaders to estimate the number of people in their congregations, set the American Catholic population at just 59 million. Weak church attendance accounts for this discrepancy: Only 24 percent of self-reported American Catholics attend Mass weekly.

[kitkat]

Maybe we should do a study on how many people who have no religion but take up surveys on people who do. Biased? Who, non-believers?

Yesterday I attended weekday Mass which is NOT a requirement for the Catholic Church. The pews in the large church were almost entirely filled. And they were not all filled by old codgers, but many people who are working take their lunch hour at noon in order to attend Mass. What empty pews?

[painter]

I am one of the ushers at the Catholic church I attend. Every year the diocese has October count. During October at every Sunday Mass that month we count every person who is there. My guess is every Catholic Parish in the country does this.

So the figures you see here are probably pretty accurate.

[Gamecock]

An interesting factiod:

In Richland County SC there are 12,681 reported Roman Catholics and 7 RC houses of worship (HOW). That averages out to 1,812 peole per HOW.
Source: City Data

So what you may ask.

The density of Roman Catholics per HOW is far greater than any other Christian denomination. I don't see a lot of RC mega-HOWs in Richland County, so I suspect that in Richland County they are overreporting.

[Mrs. Don-o]

It's sad but true, but the statistical problem is inherent to ambiguities of the subject (the nature of religious affiliation) and probably universal. I illustrate from the CIA World Factbook on Norway:

Church of Norway (Evangelical Lutheran - official) 85.7%

[savagesusie]

The Great G. K. Chesterton (a Christian apologist) aptly stated:

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.