About Religion to Reality
Religion to Reality started as an effort to make better, data-driven decisions. In 2021, DeSales Media and Vinea Research conducted a national study on Catholic Discipleship in the US. The purpose of the study was to understand what disciples’ spiritual journeys are like and what their unmet needs are. We were hoping to find that “whitespace” of how we could better serve intentional disciples.
We believe that serving these people well is one key to unlocking the kingdom of God on Earth. This is because those most committed to discipleship are the missionaries among us who bring others into the Church. The path of evangelization mirrors that of the traditional marketing funnel:
Through partnership with more than 20 organizations, we were able to reach 3,137 Catholics who we are confident have a deep relationship with the Lord and are true followers of Christ. In 2022, we released the study’s Overall Report (free download below). Sometimes answers were expected, and sometimes they were surprising. For instance:
While we learned a lot from the Overall Report, we knew there was more to glean from the data. We took the year of 2023 to go deeper into the data with Vinea Research. We wanted to understand where respondents fell along these five stages of discipleship (above)—and also where they fall along other markers, such as the innovation-diffusion curve. We also wanted to find correlative insights to help us understand which spiritual practices are linked to other aspects of Catholics’ lives. This ended up requiring a lot of time and the help of advanced statisticians to help us make sure the data was always statistically significant.
By 2024, we finally had two new reports. The first was the Segmentation Report, which analyzed respondents’ self-evaluations of their strength and need for growth across 27 areas of discipleship asked about in the study, and then compared those answers to other answers across the rest of the study. We found five statistically meaningful segments, as shown here:
And, we found that, no matter how strong their discipleship, the Sacramental Life (things like receiving the Eucharist at Mass and going to Confession) was always the strongest, while the Expressive Fruits (things like the corporal and spiritual works of mercy) were always their weakest areas:
In other words, American Catholics lead compartmentalized spiritual lives. That is to say, just because they are strong in one aspect of their faith lives, doesn’t mean that they are strong across the board—and everyone needs some growth somewhere.
The second report was Additional Charts, which shows all kinds of correlations between various spiritual practices we asked about across the survey. Across these two reports, we learned several key insights:
- There’s a clear link between worship, prayer, and spiritual direction
- If spiritual direction were more available, more people would participate in it.
- Breakthrough moments play a pivotal role in the lives of most Catholics. Facilitating the possibility of encounter with the Lord is paramount.
- Prayer apps—and digital devices such as prayer aids in general—work!
- We should approach different sub-groups of disciples differently.
- Gender: Men tend to prefer different aspects of our Catholic spirituality than women do.
- Generations: Younger people aren’t interested in the same approaches to and expressions of the faith as older people. Despite being labeled as the digital generation, young people actually desire in-person community the most.
Instead of simply making the reports free to download (which they are!—see below), we wanted to make these findings more powerful and more accessible. We thought we would first break down the insights for other leaders in ministry and invite experts to help us reveal the insights. This became the Religion to Reality webinars, which are still free to watch and download here.
We also knew that what we learned in the study could have a wider appeal for anyone engaged in spirituality. In 2025, we released the Religion to Reality podcast, featuring stories from professionals and others in the pews, allowing them to bring our data to life. For all the analytical geeks out there, the three reports will always be free to download because we at DeSales Media believe in serving the Church holistically—that there should be no “competition” among ministries. For the rest of us, we have the Religion to Reality podcast.
Download the Reports
Receive a free download of all three reports from the study on Catholic Discipleship in the US: the Overall Report, the Segmentation Report, and the Additional Charts.
