Ahead of the 30th annual World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life on Feb. 2, U.S. bishops released a study on the men and women who entered religious life in 2025.
Each year, the USCCB Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations commissions a study on the newly professed religious through the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University.
The study researchers spoke to 520 major religious superiors from communities in the U.S. Between these communities, there were 179 men and women who took their final vows in 2025. Of these men and women, 130 responded to CARA’s survey inquiries.
Among the study’s key findings was information about demographics, family background, faith life, and discernment.
Among the respondents, 55% were men and 45% were women. The average age of the fully professed religious in the survey is 38, with half of the respondents under the age of 35. Nearly 70% of the respondents were born in the U.S.
When asked about the religious affiliation of their parents, 95% of the respondents stated that at least one of their parents was Catholic, and 85% stated that both parents were Catholic.
About half of the respondents attended a Catholic elementary or middle school. 35% attended a Catholic high school, and 33% attended a Catholic college or university, and 13% were homeschooled for at least part of their education.
In the area of religious discernment, 86% of respondents stated that somebody encouraged them to consider a religious vocation.
Archbishop-designate Ronald Hicks, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, spoke of the important witness of these religious men and women.
“By responding to the vocational call such as consecrated virginity, religious life, and members of secular institutes and societies of Apostolic life, consecrated men and women reveal God’s invitation to love him with one’s whole life even now while on Earth as it will be in Heaven,” he said.
“Living out this love can start before one enters into consecrated life,” he added, “through active participation in the Mass, such as being an altar server or lector, or parish ministry, and teaching the faith to God’s people.”
The World Day of Prayer for Consecrated Life was instituted by Pope John Paul II in 1997, and dioceses around the world pray for, celebrate, and support both those who have entered the religious life and those who are discerning.
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