AUSTRALIA
CathNews

Published: September 11, 2012

BY GARRY EVERETT

“The Church is Dead!” This exclamation is not a byte from last night’s TV news. Nor is it an utterance by a doomsday alarmist.

The words ”The Church is dead” were uttered by an elderly priest – Fr Pete Chiara – on discovering that his Mass attendance had dropped to 17% of his Catholic parish population. At last count, the Australian average Mass attendance by Catholics was close to 12%.

Here at home, and in many countries around the world, churches of all denominations, conduct regular sophisticated surveys which address various aspects of parish or Church life. Data from these surveys provide information for planning purposes, at national, diocesan and parish levels. In a broad sense, the data help us to measure the health of a parish, and to develop strategies and resources to maintain or improve that level of…