Catholics need to know some basic facts about the impact our faith has on the US economy and more importantly the impact we make advancing the common good in our society. You won’t read or hear this in the mass media. The following is an excerpt from an editorial in the National Catholic Register 10.02.16 edition.
Viewed in terms of the Gross Domestic Product, religion in the U.S. would be ranked as the 15th-largest national economy in the world. The Church, of course, is more than a mere religious nonprofit. Our work in society is born not out of a desire to generate economic growth but a desire to witness to Christ in the world.
It would be difficult to convince the staff of a Catholic soup kitchen feeding the homeless that they are actually helping the U.S. economy, but that is exactly what an academic journal reports in its study on the economic impact of America’s churches. The Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion found that religious communities contribute $1.2 trillion each year to the American economy.
The study looked at the 344,894 congregations in the country, from 236 religious denominations (217 are Christian, and the rest include everything from Shinto to Zoroastrianism). What it discovered was that believers are not only contributing massively to the economy, but they are incredibly generous, too. Despite declining religious affiliation in the U.S. population, religious communities have actually tripled the amount of money spent on social programs in the last 15 years, donating $9 billion to the cause.
According to The Economist, the Church spends around $170 billion each year on health-care networks, colleges, parishes and day-to-day operations. Catholic institutions also employ more than 1 million people. This makes the Church one of the largest nonprofit employers in the country.
Read the entire editorial at the National Catholic Register.
