Contemporary Catholic Trends
Begun in 2001, Contemporary Catholic Trends provides opportunity for the study of American Catholicism and offers students and faculty invaluable experience as they engage in a research project of national significance.
Among the motivations of the original CCT investigators (Drs. William Barnett, Robert Kelly, and William Rinaman) were:
The data collected by the survey are used mainly by Le Moyne faculty and students and are available to scholars, and church leaders. Currently the CCT project is coordinated by Matthew Loveland of the Sociology Department.
CCT conducts at least two major surveys annually and on occasion shorter surveys are carried out. The questions for the surveys are prepared by faculty members at Le Moyne, sometimes with the collaboration of colleagues from other institutions. Telephone interviews with some 1,500 adult Catholics are conducted annually in the fall and spring at Zogby International’s Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) Center in Utica. Press releases and data sets from past surveys may be accessed from this web site. Press releases, highlighting key findings, are available soon after a survey has run. The data sets are first studied by the scholars who constructed them and, after two years, are made available to all who are interested. Topics covered include: Catholic and American identity, race relations, church leadership, responses to September 11, clerical sexual abuse, religious pluralism, same-sex marriage/civil unions, school prayer, stem cell research and therapy, welfare policies, Jerusalem and the Middle East, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, sexuality, ministry, education, environmental issues, prayer, women in church and society, and business ethics.
With the establishment of the Sanzone Center for Catholic Studies and Theological Reflection at Le Moyne it is expected that CCT and the Sanzone Center will collaborate in providing opportunities to reflect on the survey findings. As a college in the Catholic tradition Le Moyne hopes that scholars, church leaders, and others will make use of CCT data and that what we learn from the surveys will have an impact on scholarship, church life, and public policy.