Attendance at Sunday Mass across the Diocese of Lansing is up 6.5% over the past year with 52 out of 72 parishes recording increased numbers of people attending Holy Mass upon the Lord’s Day.
“These latest census figures are certainly heartening,” said Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, January 8, “and, upon reviewing them, I can’t help but give thanks for the goodness of God’s grace at work in our diocese, and the responsiveness to so many clergy and lay faithful to that divine grace, both presently and in years prior. Thanks be to God.”
The census of Sunday Mass attendance occurs each October in parishes across the Diocese of Lansing. Every parish submits an average of their weekly attendance across the Sundays of that month.
The annual snapshot charted a precipitous decline in Sunday Mass attendance in 2020, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by year-on-year growth in attendance for the following five years. Thus, the figures are:
• 2019: 58,090 attending Sunday Mass
• 2020: 27,501 attending Sunday Mass
• 2021: 42,559 attending Sunday Mass
• 2022: 44,416 attending Sunday Mass
• 2023: 48,528 attending Sunday Mass
• 2024: 50,035 attending Sunday Mass
• 2025: 53,290 attending Sunday Mass
These statistics suggest an increase of 10,731 in Sunday Mass attendance over the past five years. That’s a leap of just over 25%. In total, parishes across the Diocese of Lansing have recovered 92% of the pew counts prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The widespread anecdotal evidence from across our parishes is that while, sadly, we lost a significant number of church-going Catholics during the COVID year, there’s also been a big increase in Catholics who have become far more fervent in the practice of the faith,” said Lisa Kutas, Diocese of Lansing Chief of Staff, “plus a continued and startling uptick in the number of converts to Catholicism.”
“Increasingly," added Kutas, "people are either ‘all-in’ or ‘all-out’ when it comes to being serious-minded and intentional as disciples of Jesus Christ and his Holy Church.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the Sunday Eucharist “is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice,” adding that “for this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.”