Every five years the churches in Australia take part in the National Church Life Survey (NCLS). In 2001 around 435,000 attenders from over 7,000 parishes and congregations representing 19 denominations took part in the survey. These denominations represent more than 80 per cent of regular church attenders in Australia.

The NCLS project seeks to obtain a clear picture of church life and mission in a changing Australia. To this end, the survey collects information about the involvement of attenders in church and in the wider community: their background, experience of church life and how they live out their faith. The NCLS database is one of the most comprehensive databases on church life and mission anywhere in the world. It provides a unique opportunity for the churches to pause, examine their directions and determine priorities for the future.

The survey was carried out in a sample of 255 Catholic parishes that was statistically representative of parishes from each of Australia’s 28 territorial dioceses. Another 141 parishes accepted a general invitation to participate in the survey and receive a report on parish life but, as they were not part of the statistical sample, responses received from them are not included in national reports. Over 77,000 attenders completed a questionnaire in parishes that made up the national sample. Participating parishes in 2001.

Each participating parish received its own unique report, giving it an overall picture of the responses of its own attenders to each question. These reports were designed to assist parishes in planning and evaluating their life and mission.

NCLS 2001 was made up of not just one but many different questionnaires. Most attenders in each parish completed one of the main survey forms (Questionnaire A, Catholic version). Survey forms B to X were distributed randomly to the remaining attenders, allowing the creation of small national samples.

[back to National Church Life Survey]

Selected results

The following two documents are in Acrobat Reader PDF format.

	NCLS 2001 results for Australian Catholics - Background Profile [126KB]
	NCLS 2001 results for Australian Catholics - Connections for Life Profile [232KB]

[back to National Church Life Survey]

Comparison of demographic characteristics of Mass attenders and the Catholic population

[back to National Church Life Survey]

Catholic parishes which took part in the 2001 National Church Life Survey

[back to National Church Life Survey]