A commentary on the decline of Catholic weddings and birth rate in USA
In an article published in “The Dialogue” (As marriages in U.S. continue to decline, church leaders worry ‘America is getting older and more lonely’) – a publication of the Diocese of Wilmington DE – marriage leaders reflect on declining weddings and family formation.
Prompted by US Census data published in Dec 2025 which shows a decline married couple households from 66% to 47% over 50 years, and is indicative of the delayed marriage, and increased marriage alternatives including singlehood and cohabitation. It’s accompanied by a decline the fertility rate and impacts young adults of diverse socio-economic and religious backgrounds.
Here’s some excerpts from the article.
“What this year’s Census release shows is that America is getting older and more lonely,” said Patrick T. Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.
“Our population continues to live longer, have fewer babies and pair off later in life, meaning that the share of Americans who are married with children under 18 is at an all-time low,” he told OSV News. “This is the continuation of a long-run trend, one that unfortunately shows little sign of reversing any time soon.”
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“Men and women have fewer social settings in which to meet and are more polarized by online influencers,” observed Julia Dezelski, associate director of marriage and family life in the Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“When they do marry, there are fewer social supports for, and more obstacles placed in the way of, their ability to start and maintain flourishing families. These changes have combined to consistently decrease childbirths over time,” she explained.
The data show Catholics are not immune.
In 2024, there were 85,171 Catholic weddings celebrated in the U.S., along with 21,880 interreligious unions, for a total of 107,051 weddings across the 175 Latin-rite dioceses. The number of Catholic marriages in the U.S. has decreased by nearly 60% since 2000, and about 75% since 1970, when there were approximately 426,000 Catholic marriages.
“Catholics … live in a wider social, cultural, political and legal environment, from which they cannot and should not close themselves and their families to their cultural milieu,” said David Crawford, dean and associate professor of moral theology and family law for the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America in Washington. “Whatever ails the wider culture will inevitably also weaken Catholic marriages and families.”
“It is difficult — to use an obvious example — to raise one’s children to have a properly balanced sense of the relationship between men and women, when the wider culture is awash in (the) anti-marriage practice of pornography,” he continued. “For this reason, the Church needs to bring light to that wider culture.”
Brown sees these statistics as a call to action for Church leaders.
“If we cannot figure out ways of rebuilding the institution of marriage — making it more attractive, making it easier for young men and women to pair off earlier in life — we will see society continue to become more sterile, more fragile and less optimistic,” he said.
Dezelski agreed.
“Without significant incisive action within the Church and in wider society, these trends will continue and likely worsen,” she said. “The percentage of adults who are married continues to drop, as does the total fertility rate. These related downturns make for an unsustainable society.”
The article concludes with this clarion call:
“Everyone — but especially Catholics — should be thinking about how they can orient their institutions and relationships in a more pro-marriage direction,” Brown said.
That includes, he said, “more informal get-to-know-you nights for single Catholics, more conversations about not waiting around if a years-long relationship is showing no signs of leading to a ring and a proposal, more policies and preaching about what we can do to make young men and women more ‘marriageable’ and interested in becoming the type of person worth starting a life with.”
Authored by Kimberley Heatherington (OSV News correspondent based in Virginia), you can read the full article here
