Catholic Match Review

CatholicMatch.com provides a dating service that allows members to be guided by their values and relationship with God, and not with scientific formulas. As such, this dating service gives single Catholics (over 27 million in the United States alone) the best opportunity to grow in their faith and fall in love by providing an environment focused on the values that make a successful marriage. Their profile tools highlight faith and family, while also assisting in determining common or complementary interests and traits. CatholicMatch is designed to help single Catholics fulfill the Sacrament of Marriage, people wishing to join CatholicMatch should either be Catholic or are actively taking steps to become Catholic.

Catholic Match rises above other dating sites for Catholic singles. They receive thousands of new members each month and have about five times as many active members as most other Catholic dating sites. Founded by Jason LaFosse, Brian Barcaro, and Mike Lloyd, the dating service has been online since 2004 and has had 1.5 million members join (as of 2019) since then. 2019 was an exciting year for CatholicMatch as they released their dating apps (which mirror the functionality of the website) for both iOS and Android.

When you join CatholicMatch you will need a good 30 minutes to create your profile as there are many question that relate to your faith, background, lifestyle, and interests. Obviously your faith and Catholic values are an important part of matching and include questions from, how often you attend mass, to what Church's Teaching you believe in (Sanctity of Life, Papal Infallibility, Premarital Sex, Immaculate Conception, and Holy Orders).

Once you are finished with your profile you will be taken to the CatholicMatch member home dashboard where you will find summary searches of the newest members near you, those with birthdays, and the latest blog and forum posts. Most people will probably click/tap on Search to find all the members near them. This is where the benefits of everyone filling out the long profile is. You can perform a basic search on the most common attributes or take it a step further and include your criteria on any other part of the profile including those about the Catholic faith and others that relate to when the member joined or the last time they were active on the site.

After you have performed your search you will be presented with a list of members in a photo gallery format. Clicking on the profile summary will take you to the full profile where you can read more about them. You can also Like the profile at this point or even send the member a message if you would like to talk with them. Free members can only send simple graphic Emotigrams while paid members can send a full custom message and reply to messages from members as well. Subscribers get other premium perks including seeing who has liked your profile. A subscription at CatholicMatch can cost as little as $12 depending on the subscription term.

CatholicMatch has an in-depth well researched matching system in place. Found under the Connections menu you must first take the Match Portrait questionnaire before receiving any matches. The Match Portrait is a list of multiple choice questions designed to determine your life outlook, views, values, traits and other attributes of your personality which are important to a healthy relationship. The Match Portrait does take a while to complete, but you don't have to finish it all in one sitting as the questionnaire will remember where you left off. After you have finished you will then be presented with high quality matches that CatholicMatch has determined have the best chance of creating a long lasting relationship. These matches are presented one at a time where you can then specify if you are interested in the member or not. If you are, and they also indicate interest in you, CatholicMatch will notify you both.

Other dating tools are available on CatholicMatch as well. Their exclusive “Temperament Quiz” helps members get to know themselves and a potential spouse more deeply. The forums are a major part of the community at CatholicMatch and include a range of topics that members post about daily. CatholicMatch also helps members learn more about their faith, thanks to the CatholicMatch Institute. Here you will find blog posts and online courses that not only relate to relationships but help to answer other faith based questions Catholics may have.

If your Catholic faith is important to you and you wish to meet someone with similar values and be part of a real community of single Catholics, give CatholicMatch a try.

Positives of CatholicMatch

These are the best parts of CatholicMatch.

• The largest Catholic-only singles dating service
• CatholicMatch Guarantee that if you don't meet someone in 6 months you will receive an additional 6 months free (eligible subscribers only)
• Catholic Match account can be verified by Facebook
• The community of the site is very important, shown by the popularity of the message forums (more than 2,000 posts/day)
• Success stories are available to read; they include photos and written statements from thousands of couples who met on Catholic Match
• CatholicMatch dating apps available for iOS and Android

Negatives of CatholicMatch

These are the parts of CatholicMatch which needs improvement.

• Mail message communication only available to paid members
• You cannot tell who is a paid member and who is not
• Automated matching only works with other members who have answered the Match Portrait questionnaire
• As with other dating services that serve a specific niche, if you’re not in a large metro area the user pool might be small requiring you to search over a larger area for matches

Editors Bottom Line

What should you take away from this review of CatholicMatch? Our expert explains:

For over 15 years "CatholicMatch" has offered faith focused dating for Catholics. Members like the sense of community and the priority placed on dating with the ultimate goal of sacramental marriage. This is our best choice for Catholic singles.

We give CatholicMatch, a 4 out of 5 Stars! 😃

CatholicMatch Profiles & Sign Up Process

You can access CatholicMatch via their website at CatholicMatch.com (the preferred method) or by their dating apps available for Android and iOS phones. When signing up to CatholicMatch you can choose either to use just your email address or by connecting your Facebook account. Once you have started the membership signup process CatholicMatch will ask for the following information in order:

• Sign Up
  • First and last name
  • Your location
  • What gender you are (man or woman)
• Setup Profile
  • Date of Birth
  • What Diocese are you in? (If you are unsure about your Diocese or your Diocese is not listed select the closest one geographically to you)
  • What is your Marital Status? (Never Married, Widowed, Divorced, Annulled)
  • Add some photos. Include text comments with the photos. (Allowed 1 main photo and 5 others. Upload from your own gallery or Facebook. Can add comment to uploaded photo)
  • Appearance
    • Physical appearance including eyes, hair, ethnicity, etc...
  • Faith
    • Are you free to marry in the Catholic Church?
    • How often do you attend Mass?
    • Considering a religious vocation (Priest, Nun)?
    • Are you a convert?
    • What liturgical style do you prefer?
    • How much do you practice your Faith? (My Faith is part of my daily life - My Faith is important to me - I turn to my Faith in difficult times - I consider myself Catholic, but not always practicing - I was raised Catholic, not really practicing now - Get to know me first)
  • Church's Teaching (yes or no questions)
    • Do you accept Church's teaching on the Eucharist?
    • Do you accept Church teaching on the Sanctity of Life?
    • Do you accept Church teaching on Papal Infallibility?
    • Do you accept Church teaching on Premarital Sex?
    • Do you accept Church teaching on the Immaculate Conception?
    • Do you accept Church teaching on Holy Orders?
  • Background
    • Questions about your schooling, employment, family life, etc...
  • Lifestyle
    • Questions about your use of alcohol, tobacco, TV, if you exercise, etc...
    • Ask about feelings regarding long distance relationships and if you would relocate
  • Introduce yourself (text description about yourself and the type of match you are looking for)
  • Favorite Things
    • Activities - Choose your Favorite Hobbies, Interests, Pastimes
    • Faith - Choose your Favorite Saints, Prayers, Devotions
    • Foods - Choose your Favorite Restaurants, Meals, Appetizers, Desserts
    • Media - Choose your Favorite Movies, TV Shows, Actors
    • Music - Choose your Favorite Genres, Songs, Hymns, Musicians
    • Reading - Choose your Favorite Blogs, Books, Magazines
    • Sports - Choose your Favorite Games, Players, Teams
    • Travel - Choose your Favorite Trips, Destinations, Pilgrimages

All profile information is required and CatholicMatch will review all new content within 24 hours of the time that it's added.

Account Settings

Under Account Settings you can change a number of preferences including:

• Email Notifications
  • Enable or disable notifications for Messages, Views, Likes, Activity, and Promotions
  • Not all emails can be disabled (support tickets, account updates, lost passwords, etc), and CatholicMatch does reserve the right to send emails that are deemed appropriate
• General Preferences
  • Restrict Age Range (Only allow communication to be initiated by members within 15 years of your age. This does not apply to communication already in progress or initiated by you)
  • Show Last Read (Other members you are communicating with may be shown when you have read their message)
  • Instant Alerts (If you are online when someone sends you a message, emotigram, or other communication, you will see an instant notification)
  • Hide your birth date
  • Use Metric or Imperial units

Under My Account you can also change your profile status (Active or Inactive). Setting your profile to inactive prevents access to all parts of the site except for account & help pages. You will not appear in other member's search results, receive new matches or be matched with anyone. This allows you to pause your account and keep your profile and old messages intact. Accounts can be removed/deleted completely by sending a support request to CatholicMatch.

Temperament Quiz

The Temperament Quiz is multiple-choice questions designed to capture your Temperament Profile. If you take the quiz (which can be accessed when viewing your own profile) the results of the test will be displayed on your profile for others to see. Only other members who have taken the quiz as well can view your results. Knowing your temperament gives you an immediate insight into your natural strengths and weaknesses, and your emotional tendencies. In a potential relationships it will help you identify what makes your match really feel loved, what pushes his or her buttons, how they tend to communicate, and more. Understanding temperament will foster mutual appreciation for each other.

When taking the quiz it is important to answer these questions according to how you naturally tend to react. These are your natural tendencies, not those acquired through effort, education, or conditioning. CatholicMatch has partnered with TemperamentQuiz.com and once you have finished taking the quiz you can log into their website to find out more about your temperament and what it all means. There are 4 main temperaments which everyone shares to one degree or another. After you complete the quiz, the results shown on CatholicMatch will display the percentage you share of each and what your strongest traits are.

• Temperaments
  • Choleric - A leader who is energetic and goal oriented
  • Melancholic - Someone who is deeply thoughtful, sensitive and quiet
  • Phlegmatic - The easy going peacemaker
  • Sanguine - A people person who loves to have fun and is enthusiastic

CatholicMatch Costs

Catholic Match offers a free membership and a subscription service which includes sending and receiving messages and other premium features. Members who subscribe for a longer term can also get additional perks like the CatholicMatch Guarantee.

• Prices last confirmed August 06, 2019. Please check Once for most recent pricing. All prices in USD unless specified otherwise. Prices may differ based on location, time of purchase, or access point (this can include device used and/or if accessed from a website or app)
• Free Membership
  • Allows users to see how CatholicMatch works and to see what type of members are near them. The main difference between free and paid is communication
  • Includes:
    • Creating your profile
    • Search for single Catholics and view their profiles
    • Like up to 3 profiles per day to indicate interest
    • Participate in matching
    • See a list of who viewed your profile
    • Read messages received from other members. Must initiate unlock of message which starts a 10 day countdown until it can be opened and read (unlocking does unblur the profile image right away of who sent the message)
    • Send Emotigrams (without custom text)
    • Reading forum posts
  • Costs:
    • Free
• Subscription Membership
  • A paid monthly subscription for users who want access to the premium features
  • Includes:
    • Everything from the Free Membership
    • Reading messages right away
    • Sending messages
    • Send Emotigrams with a personalized text message
    • Unlimited Likes
    • See who Likes you
    • Posting in the forums
    • Private Chat and access to Community Chat Room
    • Snooze Profile (remove profile from search results for 180 days)
    • Priority customer support (including profile reviews and coaching at no additional cost)
    • Discounted renewal rates (3 month and 6 month subscribers only)
    • Message Read Indicator - Notifications when someone reads your communication (6 month subscribers only)
    • CatholicMatch Guarantee (Qualifying 6 month subscribers only)
  • Costs:
    • 1 month for $29.95
    • 3 months for $19.95 per month ($59.85 total)
    • 6 months for $12.49 per month ($74.95 total)
• Pay by any credit or debit card backed by Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express
• Memberships automatically renew until you cancel; you can cancel by clicking on "Account" in the upper right hand corner and following the prompts
• No refunds offered

CatholicMatch Guarantee

If you don't meet someone special during your 6 month subscription, CatholicMatch will give you an additional 6 months at no additional cost to you. Certain rules do apply including (but not limited too):

• Be free to marry in the Catholic Church
• Have a complete and truthful profile with a profile photo and at least 5 other photos
• Participate in the matching feature
• Contact at least one new person per week who you haven't already communicated with. This must be a message or emotigram that includes personalized text

If you meet the requirements for the guarantee and have not meet your match by the end of your 6 month subscription at CatholicMatch visit the Guarantee page within the last 7 days of your subscription and click the green redeem button. If you do not do this, or if you do not qualify your subscription will automatically renew (unless this has been turned off already). You can also track your eligibility during your 6 month subscription from the Guarantee page.

CatholicMatch Viewing & Communication Features

Pretty much all features are accessible from the top menu on the CatholicMatch website (same as tapping on the menu icon for the app). This includes tools related to profiles, messages, and finding other members. New items and events like messages, views, matches, etc.. show a numeric notification icon next to its menu item so it is easy to see if you have received anything new since the last time you logged in. The features and tools available for each of these items include:

• Profile
  • View the members, photos, first name, age, introduction, appearance, faith details, location, and other profile attributes
  • View Temperament Test results
  • Tap or click on the red heart icon to Like the profile
  • Tap or click on the speech bubble icon to send a custom message or a Emotigram. Free members can only send a Emotigram
  • Report profile for objectionable material or other reasons (found under the 3 dot menu icon)
  • Snooze profile (found under the 3 dot menu icon). This will hide it for 180 days from your search results. For subscribers only
• Photos
  • Click on any photo to view a larger version



• Messages
  • Read and reply to messages from other members (subscribers only). This can also act like real-time chatting if the other member is currently online
  • View a full conversation and new messages by clicking on the members name/photo under the Messages section
    • Free members can initiate a message unlock on a new message which then shows a count down of when the message can be read. When you unlock a message it takes 10 days before you can read it
    • Any sent messages will appear in the conversation
    • Within the conversation you can view the full profile, hide the conversation, block the member (select "Not Interested"), and report the member
    • Blocked members messages are hidden but still accessible by clicking the Messages menu and viewing "Hidden Messages". You can remove a block by viewing the hidden conversation and then selecting the "Open Communication" menu item from the 3 dot menu
  • View a list of members who have liked you and a list of members who you have liked (found under the Likes section). Subscribers only
  • When you send your message, it instantly alerts your recipient that they've received a message so that they know to check their inbox
  • A notification beneath a sent message will appear when your recipient reads the message (6 month subscriber only)
• Views
  • Found under the Connections menu item
  • See a gallery of members who have viewed your profile in the last 60 days
  • Displays members exactly the same as Search
  • Results can be sorted by date, last active, etc...
• Community Forums
  • These forums are exclusively for single Catholics who are members of Catholic Match
  • There are over 20 different forums (i.e. "Prayer & Support", "Dating & Single Living", "Saint Peter's Square", "Catechetics, Apologetics & Liturgy") with over 100,000 topics and millions of actual messages
  • Topics ranging from theology to sports and everything in between
  • Catholic Match keeps track of the topics you have shown interest in, making it easy to find topics you have browsed, replied to, started or set alerts on
  • Ideal for meeting new people and building faith-based friendships
  • When searching for members you can specify if you require the results to show members who have participated in the forum

Searching and Matching

CatholicMatch has 2 main features you use to find compatible members. This includes Search and Matches (found under Connections menu).

Search

If you have specific search criteria in mind (based on all those profile questions) for your ideal match, the search feature is going to be your best option. With the search feature, you can select your ideal preferences for a partner and then view a list of all members on CatholicMatch who meets those preferences.

Search allows to specify just a basic criteria of members you want to meet which includes gender, age range, location (and distance from), and if photo is required. You can go a step or more beyond this by including most attributes from a profile including those from Appearance, Background, Lifestyle, Faith, and Miscellaneous. Of these sections (they are the tab names on the page), Faith and Miscellaneous are the 2 other most important sections. With Faith you can include what Church Teachings you want the member to believe in, along with mass attendance requirements, and Liturgical Styles. With the Miscellaneous tab you can include such important attributes as making sure all members returned in the search have joined within X amount of days, and active within X amount of days. You can also include if they are Online Now, someone who is a Forum Poster (excellent way to determine how active they are on the site), and any favorite interests you may share.

Search results are returned in a photo gallery type format with the main profile photo being displayed for each member and then the first name, age, location, and marital status being display underneath. The profile summary also shows the last time the person was online, how many photos they have, and the number of favorites you share. Clicking or tapping on the profile photo will then take you to the full profile of the member where you can then read more about them, send them a message (tap on the speech bubble icon), and Like their profile (tap on the Heart icon).

Any Search you do can be saved which is great especially if you have specified a long list of criteria. Search results can be sorted by Standard (whatever that is?), Distance, and Age. A maximum of one thousand records will be returned for any search query.

Matches

The current Matches feature was introduced to CatholicMatch in 2012 and has been a great success (the previous system was based just on match criteria of profile attributes). Before you can view any Matches, CatholicMatch requires you to fill out a questionnaire called the Match Portrait. This questionnaire is designed to find out your self interests, outlook, views, values, traits and other attributes of one's personality that are important to a relationship. The questions addresses key areas where successful couples do well to agree on. Once finished, your responses are evaluated using a Likert scale. With these results, a comparison is made by the CatholicMatch matching algorithm between other members to figure out who is compatible, and then these members become the suggested matches. One thing to remember is that with matching you can only be matched with other members who also have completed the Match Portrait questionnaire. This does limit your pool of potential matches since not all members complete it.

The Match Portrait does take a good 30 minutes to complete and has many questions organized by type. When each question is asked there are 5 possible answers you can select from which range usually on a scale of "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree" (or something similar that makes sense for the question being asked). The middle answer of "Neither agree or disagree" if selected will mean the question is disregarded when CatholicMatch algorithm is determining compatible members for you. Sample questions from Match Portrait include:

• I enjoy activities that involve a lot of physical effort (From the Interests section)
• My self-esteem is (From the Disposition/Outlook section)
• When it comes to food/dining, I'm very particular (From the Interests section)
• I have had many difficult times in my life (From the Background/Experience section)

Once you have completed the Match Portrait questionnaire, matches will appear on your Match page in a list for you to review. To view an individual match select the "Reveal" button (or "Update" button if you have already viewed them) to visit the matches detailed profile. At the top of the profile, CatholicMatch will ask you if you are interested in the member. If you select "No", the match will be removed from your list. If you select "Yes" your match will remain in your list and if they select "Yes" on your profile, CatholicMatch will send you both a notification. From the profile page you also can start a conversation.

Matches can be filtered based on age, distance, Church Teachings, Body Type, and Martial Status. CatholicMatch suggests not to make these filters to restrictive as they may eliminate most or all of your matches. A lot of research went into their matching system so that they could provide high quality matches which have the best chance of leading to successful faith-focused marriages.

Other CatholicMatch Information

CatholicMatch Institute (Includes Blog and Online Courses)

CatholicMatch offers several other faith based features. The CatholicMatch Institute is one and it exists to address the unique issues couples and single Catholics face everyday. It includes magazine/blog articles designed to help people of the Catholic faith to navigate the ups and downs of being single and those who are already in a relationship and/or marriage. The Institute also contains other resources including faith, dating, and relationship related online courses, guides, and ebooks. Most courses contain multiple chapters (usually 12). Each chapter contains a video that is around 5 minutes in length that discusses the topic at hand. Courses also include an in-depth description along with details of what you learn. A preview chapter is available as well so you can see first hand how the material is presented. The courses and guides do cost money but current CatholicMatch subscribers will receive a large discount if they purchase a product. Some resources are also available to purchase in a bundle at an additional discount.

Success Stories

Want to find out how CatholicMatch worked out for other singles? That is easy since their are thousands of success stories available to read at CatholicMatch.com. Each month has on average 5 or more stories posted (which goes back years). These posts are not just a paragraph but a full fledge article about the happy couple, how they met, and how the relationship blossomed. Multiple photos are included with each article along with some videos as well. The success stories are from all types of Catholics, including different generations and ethnicities.

Catholic Trivia Contest

This weekly trivia contest is designed to allow single Catholics to increase their knowledge of the Catholic faith while allowing for some friendly competition. It starts every Monday where contestants must answer 40 Catholic related questions. There is a Trivia Leader Board which shows off the past weeks members top 20 who ranked based on their overall score and number of questions answered. You can also view the rankings for the previous 10 weeks. Clicking on a ranking member will take you to their CatholicMatch profile.

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