November 18, 2011
October Mass count shows decline in attendance
Average attendance at Sunday Mass slipped a little, according to statistics from Judy Neff, chancellor of the Diocese of Evansville.
The latest figures are taken from reports in each parish, with counts of persons attending Mass on three Sundays in October. The number of people present is then compared to the number of people who are registered in the parish.
The average for all parishes in the diocese in 2011 was 41.5 percent, down from 42.6 percent the previous year.
Over the past 10 years, the average attendance in the diocese has fallen a little more than five percent.
- 2002: 46.8 percent
- 2003: 44.8 percent
- 2004: 44.9 percent
- 2005: 44.5 percent
- 2006: 44.3 percent
- 2007: 44.1 percent
- 2008: 43.2 percent
- 2009: 43.2 percent
- 2010: 42.6 percent
- 2011: 41.5 percent
The Sunday Mass count in-cludes all Masses celebrated on Sunday and also the Anticipa-tion Mass celebrated on Saturday.
There are 69 parishes in the diocese, in seven deaneries drawn generally along county lines (but dividing the Evansville area into east and west).
Individual parish attendance is available from the parish office. Deanery results are re-ported here as averages.
Evansville East: 44 percent
- The Evansville East Deanery includes 12 parishes — 11 of them in Evansville and St. John the Evangelist Church in Daylight.
Evansville West: 44 percent
- The Evansville West Deanery includes 13 parishes — seven in Evansville and others in Posey County and outside of Evansville in Vanderburgh County.
Jasper Deanery: 37 percent
- The Jasper Deanery includes 11 parishes in Dubois County.
Newburgh Deanery: 37 percent
- The Newburgh Deanery includes nine parishes in Warrick and Spencer counties
Princeton Deanery: 43 percent
- The Princeton Deanery includes six parishes serving all of Gibson and a portion of Pike County.
Vincennes Deanery: 39 percent
- The Vincennes Deanery includes 10 parishes in Knox, Sullivan and Greene counties.
Washington Deanery: 53 percent
- The Washington Deanery includes eight parishes in Da-viess and Martin counties and Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Petersburg.
The total number of persons registered, according to the compilation of the 69 reports, is 83,329. That represents a slight drop from the previous year, which was reported as 83,650.
The number of registered households also dropped from 31,427 to the current year, 31,358.