CV NEWS FEED // The ministry Communio is using data analytics and faith to accomplish its mission of saving and strengthening marriages during “an era of family breakdown and religious disaffiliation.”
Founded by J.P. De Gance in 2017, Communio works with Catholic and Christian churches across the United States to give married couples further resources and support in their marriages. De Gance told CatholicVote in a previous interview about the importance of combating stigmas surrounding couples who want to work on and grow in their marriage.
“As Catholics, we know on this side of heaven, we are always a work in progress, we’re always needing to grow in holiness, and our parishes need to be places where it’s normalized to invest in your marriage,” De Gance told CatholicVote:
[If] marriage is the most common pathway to grow in holiness, then we have to ask ourselves the hard questions at the parish level, the diocesan Church level: What are we on a practical basis doing to help married men and married women to grow in holiness through their vocation?
Author Seth Kaplan recently wrote for The City Journal highlighting how Communio helps parishes support married couples especially using data analytical strategies to determine the individual church’s needs.
Kaplan reflected on learning more about Communio last year during when various Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic leaders “gathered to strategize on how to build strong marriages in an era of family breakdown and religious disaffiliation.”
Communio “offers churches a framework and resources to increase engagement and promote marriage in their communities,” Kaplan wrote. “Its use of data analytics strengthens its value proposition.”
“Communio’s predictive models analyze social and behavioral patterns in areas around churches to suggest which residents are likely to marry, get divorced, or become single parents, and whether individuals living in these places might react favorably to invitations from a church to participate in marriage programs,” Kaplan continued.
Communio also helps the parishes tailor events specific to different couples’ stages in life, especially by using digital and physical outreach such as door-to-door contact, social media, or mailing.
For parishes with a lot of couples who have younger children, hosting “a date night with free childcare” is a good event choice. “Others may receive invitations to activities such as salsa lessons, trivia contests, or stand-up comedy,” Kaplan wrote.
“Communio’s next step is to help churches host smaller events more focused on relationship-building, targeting either married couples or singles,” Kaplan continued:
These events serve as gateways for couples to participate in classes on topics like effective communication and conflict resolution that can improve their marriages.
These repeated contact points also serve the churches’ core missions of sharing a religious message with individuals who would seldom (or never) go to church.
Kaplan wrote, “In 2022, Communio launched a new strategy that focuses on the most influential churches in the nation’s 40 largest metropolitan areas, where 60 percent of the American population lives.”
For example, Communio partnered with the Archdiocese of Kansas City in 2022. The Leaven praised Communio’s approach in the Kansas City Archdiocese for already “producing tangible, positive results.”
Another location, Duval County, Florida, has seen lower divorce rates since the arrival of Communio’s ministry in the local churches there.
Duval County was “one of its first three test areas and home to Jacksonville,” Kaplan wrote:
Communio partners report that 60,000 people participated in their marriage-enrichment programs between 2016 and 2018. During that time, divorce rates in Duval County fell by 24 percent, a drop-off considerably steeper than those found in other parts of the state over the same period (though, of course, it is hard to establish causality).
While this success in parish and church communities will continue for Communio remains “unclear,” Kaplan concluded, “given the urgency of creating and sustaining strong marriages, we can only hope that this and other innovative social enterprises can make a difference.”
