Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 15, 2025 / 12:41 pm (CNA).
An economics paper published last month on religious service attendance trends in 66 countries concluded that the implementation of reforms associated with the Second Vatican Council likely contributed to subsequent Mass attendance declines.
The working paper, “Looking Backward: Long-term Religious Service Attendance in 66 Countries,” was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) on July 21.
NBER economists delved into historical trends for religious service attendance in historically Catholic and historically Protestant countries based on 1,900 religious affiliation statistics.
According to the researchers, attendance rates declined significantly faster in historically Catholic countries than in Protestant ones in the years after Vatican II. The trend began immediately after Vatican II and was not ongoing when the council began in the early 1960s.
Beginning in 1965 and through the 2010s, monthly attendance in Catholic nations decreased by an average of 4 percentage points more than Protestant countries in every decade.
Dismissing the claim that attendance rates only went down due to broader secularizing trends globally, the report asserted: “The decline in attendance is specific to Catholicism, to which Vatican II would directly apply.”
NBER researchers claim that Vatican II and subsequent reforms “profoundly affected Catholic faith and practice” and concluded the council’s implementation “triggered a decline in worldwide Catholic attendance relative to that in other denominations.”
“Compared to other countries, Catholic countries experienced a steady decline in the monthly adult religious service attendance rate starting immediately after Vatican II,” the report found. “The effect is statistically significant.”
Harvard economics professor Robert Barro, one author of the study, told CNA the findings show “a substantial reduction in attendance” in Catholic countries relative to Protestant countries.
He noted the Catholic decline culminates to “as much as 20 percentage points” worse than the Protestant decline over about four decades.
Barro said “before Vatican II, the Catholic and non-Catholic places behaved in a similar manner.”
He said “there’s nothing before the event” but also noted the study “cannot exclude the possibility that something else that you’re not looking at happened at the same time.”
The NBER report incorporates retrospective questions from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). These surveys from 1991, 1998, 2008, and 2018 gather data about the past by asking respondents about religious service attendance from their childhoods. These surveys, according to the report, fill in data for years in which there was not polling.
“Nobody before had the long-term data,” Barro said.
What might have impacted the decline in Mass attendance?
Although the report is primarily an economics paper, the researchers cite sociologists who have analyzed the implementation of Vatican II. It contends the findings are consistent with the view that the implementation “shattered the perception of an immovable, truth-holding Church.”
The report cites the late sociologist Father Andrew Greeley’s book “The Catholic Revolution,” which attributed five major changes to the post-Vatican II Church: Mass in the local language, broader ecumenism, looser rules, internal debates on birth control, and more priests seeking laicization.
Harvard economist Rachel McCleary, who is Barro’s wife and has also conducted research on the Church, told CNA she believes the implementation of the council had “a secularizing effect on the Catholic Church, which means that you’re losing your brand.”
“They want something that’s different, that addresses their spiritual needs,” she said, arguing that the implementation of the council “did the reverse; it secularized the religion.”
McCleary argued that the implementation led to some internal strife with some Catholics believing the effects “went too far” and others thinking they “didn’t go far enough.”
Father Paul Sullins, a senior research associate at the Ruth Institute, told CNA there is a distinction between Vatican II itself and the subsequent “social effects of its implementation and reception” of the council.
He warned not to confuse the implementation with “the content or documents of the council proper.”
Sullins said some Church leaders “acted in what they perceived to be ‘the spirit of Vatican II,’ which was often not envisioned or even justified by the council itself.”
Yet disproportionate attendance decline, he noted, is “undeniable and widely documented.” He added: “The Catholic decline is pretty secular (gradual, long-term), so it’s probably responsive to many other cultural factors [as well],” such as disputes about the Church’s ban on contraception.
“But [the implementation of] Vatican II clearly worked to accommodate the Church to the world, and so contributed to the decline — the differential decline — among Catholics,” Sullins said.
For example, the council itself allowed greater use of the vernacular language but also called for preserving the use of Latin and Gregorian chant in the Mass. The council did not require priests to face the people during Mass as opposed to the traditional “ad orientem” posturing in which the priest faces away from the people. It also did not discourage kneeling while receiving Communion.
Tom Nash, a staff apologist for Catholic Answers, contended the report failed to make a clear distinction between the council itself and “the infamous ‘spirit of Vatican II’” when it comes to certain subjects, such as ecumenism.
“The issue is whether the actual teachings of the council triggered this decline or whether there are other factors involved,” he told CNA.
Although Vatican II avoids using the word “heretic” for Protestants and opts to use “separated brethren,” Nash said “the Church didn’t, in fact, promote religious indifference at the council in its teachings.” He said the term “is painfully but accurately used multiple times … regarding fellow Christians … who are validly baptized.”
Non-Christians, Nash said, “are our brothers and sisters in the sense that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, but we painfully are not yet one Christ.”
Nash cited the council’s dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium to note Vatican II “reaffirmed the Church’s definitive teaching on papal primacy in governing and teaching, which Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted in founding the Church on the rock of St. Peter.”
“Vatican II also reaffirmed and elaborated further on the Church’s divinely given power to teach infallibly on faith and morals,” he added.
Nash noted several ways the Church could improve Mass attendance, including an increase in Eucharistic reverence, such as more options for adoration, “promoting kneeling for the reception of holy Communion,” and using patens to “heighten Eucharistic awareness and reverence.”
He also encouraged parishes to offer confession for five to 10 hours every week.
“When we make sacramental encounters more available with Our Lord Jesus Christ, an increase in Sunday Mass participation will follow accordingly,” Nash said.
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As a former Evangelical Protestant from a church that featured nationally-known speakers and also produced nationally-known writers and musicians, along with my late husband (who was a former Evangelical Pentecostal Protestant from a dynamic Assemblies of God church that has grown to several thousand people and a large school system), I would like to say that IMO–and it’s just my opinion and possibly not what the typical Catholic thinks– that it’s more likely that the Mass attendance and participation in the local parishes declined for the same reasons that many Mainline Protestant churches declined and have closed–the appeal to “regular” people by the lively, dynamic Evangelical churches not only in the U.S., but also in other countries.
The reasons for this appeal include (but are not limited to):
–excellent contemporary music along with traditional gospel hymns and attention paid to the “great hymns of the church” (these “great hymns” would be familiar to Catholics as well), with well-trained choirs, soloists, well-played piano, organ, the occasional guitar, and lively singing led by a skilled song leader, along with a “music minister” who was trained to provide appropriate worship music for a large congregation, including the children and teens. The involvement of children and teens in church music is very important–I am always saddened to see Catholic children not singing the hymns (nor do their parents) during a Mass. While my daughters were growing up, I often played piano for our church worship services, and when I wasn’t playing, I required my daughters to stand and follow along with the hymn as I pointed out the words–by the time they were in kindergarten, they were singing “by memory” many of the great hymns, including ALL the verses! They also were members of the church children’s choir. Never underestimate the power of music and never make the assumption that Catholics “prefer traditional chant or some other form of ancient music!” We had many Catholics start attending and eventually joining our Evangelical churches who loved the excellent MUSIC! (Yes, I know–music is not something we should base our hope of heaven on!) The key word is “EXCELLENT!” And not surprisingly, this kind of music talent and ability generally requires a good salary–the amazing music ministers at our Evangelical Church during the 1970s were paid over 60K/year (allowances for attending various Christian music conventions and classes).
–dynamic preaching that was generally well-organized and strongly-delivered (generally a 3-point sermon with many references to Scripture and also illustrations from real life), along with a modern and well-performing sound system that had accommodations for people who have hearing impairments,
–the many opportunities other than the “parish school” for children and youth to serve the Lord and His people through music, service to the poor, working with smaller children in the church, Bible quizzing, travel to different lands with “youth missions, etc. (This has improved in Catholic parishes, but often, the youth pastor sticks around for a year and then moves on, or the youth pastor is actually a “priest” learning how to work with children and teens by taking charge of them for a few months.
–the “altar call” or “invitation” calling for a personal commitment to what has been said (and sadly, often appealing more to the emotions than the intellect and logic)
These are four “keys” that I find lacking at most (but not all) Catholic parishes. Don’t get me wrong, I love being Catholic and I KNOW that “I’m home” and I’m completely convinced that the Catholic Church IS THE CHURCH THAT JESUS HIMSELF FOUNDED!
But–at one point, the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church that our family was involved with (key words–INVOLVED WITH, not just “attended”!) for 10 years had a membership in which 25% of the 500 members were converts to Evangelicalism from Catholicism! They still lauded the “solemnity” of the Catholic Mass and occasionally attended a Mass out of nostalgia or for family occasions (especially the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve), but…they still left Catholicism for Evangelical Christianity.
We’re just human beings, and American human beings at that. We’re a melting pot of cultures–most of us have several “nationalities” in our bloodline, and we’re more likely to be “loyal” to our own dreams and hopes than “tradition.” I don’t think that’s likely to change in the U.S.A. We’re always moving on, finding new states and new homes, exploring new hobbies, quitting our jobs to find a better job, etc.
My entire family converted to Catholicism after an abusive experience in our final Evangelical Protestant church–an “Evangelical Free” church (the name actually means “free” of any ecclesial body that is “in charge” of the denomination, so it’s no wonder the parties involved were allowed to continue their abusive behavior and attacks). God used that abuse to lead us “home” to Catholicism, and I and my family will be forever grateful to Him for His love and mercy for us.
It amazes me that the decline in mass attendance is still propagated by the Vat 2 inclusion as its main cause. You are so off-course that I have to wonder if it’s mass induced myopia. Had V2 NOT happened, mass attendance would be where it is now because of the following events. The death of JFK, the Beatles and all subsequent music labeled rock, folk, new age, the Gothicity of the TLR mass which had already lost its flavor, the esoteric understanding of eastern deism borne out by Pope Francis’ proto classification that Hell ‘is not what the Gospels are about’, the archaic collection of Cannon Laws, the nearly perfect science of evolution which totally negates Original Sin, the absurdity of Adam and Eve’s fall which no Catholic is required to believe, the obvious link between sex and death as purported in Genesis, the Inquisition, the teaching with-in my own lifetime, that only Catholics go to heaven, the scandals throughout Pontifical history, the glaring mortal penalties for, ie: eating meat on Fridays, quite revoked, the allowance of eating meat on Lent Fridays unless it falls on St Patrick’s day in some diocese, Evangelicalism, the inability of the CC after 2000 years to expand due to Islam, Eastern deism, the integration of Judaism into a liturgy quite adverse to its premise and without that Faith’s permission to do so. I could go so far on but needn’t as the existential proof is all around us.
You might be confusing Feeneyism with Catholic teaching on salvation. Feeneyism was a heresy. Even my pre VII illustrated Baltimore Catechism teaches that others besides Catholics can be saved.
I’m tired of hearing about VII and the decline in Catholic practice.
I think and hope that the Francis pontificate was the last gasp of the “spirit of VII”.
We have a new pope and a lot of work to do.
Let’s get on with it.
Yes, Mrs. Cleo!
I went “home” this past weekend (50 high school reunion!) and attended Sunday Mass at my home parish (where I and my late husband were welcomed into the Catholic Church in 2004!).
It was full, standing room only, and the majority of attendees were young families of all different races. There were still plenty of my old friends, but there were plenty of young families. Even the congregational hymn singing was good (a variety of traditional and contemporary hymns).
And there are plenty of other “fun” churches to attend in my home city-large Evangelical Protestant churches that feature a Praise and Worship Band (generally rock/contemporary music), overheads, children’s classes so they don’t have to sit through a boring adult sermon, dynamic preaching, and lots of friendly people.
But the Catholic Church continues to attract a lot of people who are tired of the constant “show” and want Jesus, Truly Present, Blood, Body, Soul and Divinity.
That being said, there’s still work to be done and there always will be.
Duh. In other news, water is wet.
Maybe that was the goal of Vatican II