What We Have Learned about People Who Attend the TLM

This is a long one! It is actually three articles in one post, but I think it's definitely worth reading. We are going to win by simple demographics!

From Fr Z's Blog

The Demographic Sinkhole Opening Under the Church

I had an ongoing discussion with a friend who claimed that, one day, the Traditional Latin Mass would be the only Mass left in the Latin Church (sorry, Ambrosian Rite! We weren’t thinking of you, and I guess we were including Dominicans, etc.).   I demurred for a long time.

However, I have come to reassess my thoughts, especially in light of the huge hit the Church in these USA will take in the wake of COVID-1984.  I have long said that a demographic sinkhole was about to open up under the Church here.  The fact is that lots of “nones” will stop even pretending to embrace the family religion.  Also, the inexorable movement of time is applying the “biological solution” to us all.  We will lose a lot of seasoned Catholics and, with them, their financial support.  Their children are already going and gone.

Corona lockdown melodrama has accelerated the opening of the sinkhole.  I suspect that quite a few people who barely went to church will disappear pretty much for good.  I think that a stronger Church and stronger bishops would have made a little difference, however.

That said, I believe that a lot of traditional Masses kept going and traditional priests found creative ways to keep going.

I don’t have the entire survey.  I’d very much like to see it.

However, at the site Catholic Monitor, I saw this.  Some results from a survey about the Traditional Latin Mass conducted by Fr. Donald Kloster.

Take a look at these findings.

Take a look at this:

Fulfill Sunday obligation:
TLM: 99% vs. NOM: 22%

Approve of abortion:
TLM: 1% vs. NOM: 51%

Go to Confession at least once a year:
TLM: 98% vs. NOM: 25%

Approve of contraception:
TLM: 2% vs. NOM: 89%

Support same-sex marriage:
TLM: 2% vs. NOM: 67%

“TLM attendees donate 5 times more in the collection” according to Fr. Kloster.
(Catholic Herald, “Traditional Latin Mass attendees more devout and orthodox, study says,” February 27, 2019)

I still believe that as the sinkhole widens, two main groups will stay strong, those who want Tradition and also those who converts from an evangelical background and some charismatics with sound devotions.  These groups will find each other.  There will be some friction points along the way, but they will begin to integrate.   That’ll be something to see.

Here's the study Fr Zed is referencing

From the Liturgy Guy

By Brian Williams

National Survey Results: What We Learned About Latin Mass Attendees

by Fr. Donald Kloster

St. Mary’s Catholic Church,
Norwalk, Connecticut USA
revfrkloster@yahoo.com

Contributors: Sha Balizet Fisher, Ph.D. (Statistics), Brian Williams-Liturgyguy.com (Consultant), Christine Boyle (Webmaster).

Introduction

Through more than twenty years of offering both the Novus Ordo Mass (NOM) and the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), this writer has observed variations between the people attending the two different Masses within the Roman Rite. American Catholics attending the NOM have been surveyed repeatedly in terms of their beliefs and practices (Pew Research and Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University [CARA]).

Yet, the body of research does not appear to include a description of Catholics who attend the TLM. These Catholics attend at least 489 Sunday Masses nationwide (latinmassdir.org, 2019). On any given Sunday, an estimated 100,000 Catholics (slightly over 200 faithful per Mass and/or parish) in the United States of America worship according to the ancient Mass that, prior to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), was offered in Latin for over 1,500 years.

The quickly growing number of TLM-only parishes permits survey research going beyond one individual’s observations. The objective of this pilot study was to measure the fruit of the two Masses, by directly comparing the TLM and NOM attendees’ responses to the same questions.

Method 

The survey consisted of seven questions on the beliefs and attitudes of the respondents. Data was collected between March 2018 and November 2018. The surveys were anonymous and unique responses only were tallied. In pew surveys were administered to 1322 respondents. The number of responses varied (between 1,251 and 1,322) according to the given question. The same survey, administered online, received 451 responses.

In Pew Survey Respondents 

Arizona, California, Colorado, New Hampshire, Texas.

Online Survey Respondents 

Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia.

The TLM Survey was designed to parallel questions posed in previous research, allowing a direct comparison between the TLM attendees and those of the NOM. These were the topics:

1. Approval of contraception
2. Approval of abortion
3. Weekly Mass attendance
4. Approval of same sex marriage
5. Percentage of income donated
6. Annual Confession among weekly Mass attendees
7. Fertility Rate

Results

Analysis

Modern society, by popular belief, is the cause of decreasing sacramental participation in the Catholic Church. However, the present survey, compared with other data, reveals a striking variance between Catholics attending the TLM versus those who attend the NOM. These differences are dramatic when comparing beliefs, church attendance, monetary generosity, and fertility rates.

Importantly, TLM families have a nearly 60% larger family size. This will translate to a changing demographic within the Church. TLM attendees donate 5 times more in the collection, indicating that they are far more invested than the NOM attendees. TLM Catholics go to Mass every Sunday at 4.5 times the rate of their NOM brethren. This implies a deep commitment to the faith. The almost universal adherence to the Sunday Mass obligation depicts Catholics who are deeply in love with their faith and cannot imagine missing their Sunday privilege.

Future Research 

Would young adult TLM Catholics be more likely to commit to a life in the Church? This question has never been studied among TLM Catholics since the inception of the 1970 NOM. Research is needed to explore TLM attendees’ vocations to the Priesthood, Religious Life, Married Life, and Single Life within the 18-39 year old subset of TLM Catholics. Preliminary studies by this author indicate that the TLM produces 7-8 times the number of Priestly and Religious vocations. Reception of the sacrament of Holy Matrimony would also seem to be much higher among TLM attendees. Finally, how well does the TLM retain young adults once they leave their parent’s homes?  Rigorous study on these topics are planned for 2019.

Bibliography

1. CARA                      Annual Conf/Weekly Mass       Feb 16, 2014       
2. CARA 2017              Mass attendance                     April 11, 2018 Huffington Post quoting Dr. Mark Gray
3. Catholic Philly.com   Donation %                             May 17, 2013
4. Pew Research          Catholic Fertility Rate              May 12, 2015
5. Pew Research          Contraception                         Sept 28, 2016
6. Pew Research          Abortion                                  Oct   15, 2018 
7. Relevant Magazine   Donation %                             March 8, 2016
8. Daily Wire                 Same sex marriage                 July 2,   2017    

And, also from the Liturgy Guy, a study looking specifically at young adults in the Millennial & Gen Z groups.

2019-20 TLM Survey: What We Learned About Latin Mass Attending Young Adults

Traditional Latin Mass National Adult 18-39 Survey by Fr. Donald Kloster
Diocese of Bridgeport, CT revfrkloster@yahoo.com
Contributors: Sha Balizet Fisher, Ph.D., Steve Tschopp (Statistics), Brian Williams-liturgyguy.com, Jon Alsenas (Consultants), James Chessman (Webmaster)

Introduction

Let us consider Kevin Cotter’s review of Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell which appears on the Focus Blog. He lists some alarming statistics. Here are four notable Novus Ordo Mass formed statistics:

1.) Only 30% of Americans who were raised Catholic are still practicing (p. 24).

2.) 10% of all adults in America are ex-Catholics (p. 25).

3.) 79% of cradle Catholics become unaffiliated and cease using “Catholic” by age 23 (p. 33).

4.) In the early 21st century, for USA raised Catholics, becoming Protestant is the best guarantee of stable church attendance as an adult (p. 35).

Method

In early October 2019, a pre-survey in person written questionnaire was administered to 25 adults aged 18-39 at St. Mary’s Parish in Norwalk, CT. That questionnaire helped hone the wording and number of the questions to be asked in the Study.

The subsequent Kloster 2019-2020 Survey was conducted October 22, 2019 – March 1, 2020. The Survey consisted of 14 questions administered exclusively online to 1,779 respondents. Each respondent answered every question. The contributors were unfunded and the respondents had no incentive to answer the questions.

This second and follow up Kloster 2019-2020 Survey was an attempt to measure the amount of interest and participation in the Traditional Latin Mass from the demographic of the Traditional Catholic adults 18-39 years of age. Many samples were collected as a result of two large Traditional Latin Mass gatherings.

On February 1, 2020 in Philadelphia, PA over 800 were in attendance for a Sarum Rite Vespers. On February 15, 2020 in New York, New York 950 gathered for a Solemn High Mass at the Lepanto Conference with Cardinal Zen. A great number of the attendees at these two events were in the target age group (300+ online samples gained) of the Kloster 2019-2020 Study.

The social networking throughout the just over four months of the survey was incredibly successful and yielded the overwhelming bulk of the number (1,400+ online samples gained) of respondents from all over the country. There were also about 250+ samples deleted because they were not in the desired age group.

Gallup polling reports that 12% of 20-29 year old Novus Ordo attendees go to weekly Mass. This Kloster 2019-2020 Survey had an average age of 27.4.

Online Survey States

The following states had an unnumbered participation count by the Google survey application: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Analysis

There were 39 states included in the Study whose number was unintended but helpful for a wide measure of the subset of the 18-39 year olds within the 150,000 total Traditional Catholics of all ages that attend the TLM on any given Sunday.

Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont were the 11 states without a sample.

The average number of total children was 3.5, which closely mirrored the 3.6 birth rate of the Kloster 2018 Study.

The male participation in the Study was 57% or fully 8 percentage points higher than males in our USA population. Men are an important barometer of any Liturgical Rite’s attractiveness.

The respondents had an average of 4.02 academic years after high school. The Mass attendance was 97.6% compared with the 99% of all TLM adults in the Kloster 2018 Study.

80% of the respondents thought about a priestly or religious vocation. This number confirms the surge in entries to TLM seminaries and convents.

45% of the respondents of this Study came back or came into the Catholic Church. 90% of the respondents were not raised from at least the age of 7 in the TLM. The Survey confirms that the Traditional Latin Mass is experiencing a high volume of participation and interest in the 18-39 demographic; a demographic noticeably underrepresented in modern Novus Ordo Mass parishes.