It can be difficult for someone to find love within their own religion and to share time with someone who has similar religious beliefs and values as you do and who you are attracted to as well. If you’re a Christian and want to find another Christian to be friends, fall in love, or have a relationship, there are plenty of online dating websites that can cater to your specific demographic and you’ll likely be able to find someone special out of the millions of Christians out there who are looking for romance online.
However, it’s important to note that while it’s difficult for Christians to find love online, it’s almost impossible for Catholics to do the same due to the limited amount of online dating websites that are available for this specific denomination of Christianity.
Luckily, for those Catholic men and women who are single and are looking to mingle, date, find love, and even marry, there is a website out there that can help Catholic singles to do all of the above and more. The name of the website is CatholicMatch and it is a good option to consider if you’re Catholic and you’re ready to start online dating.
Catholics can sometimes have difficulty finding someone special in person based on their location or due to their beliefs and values. CatholicMatch makes it much easier for singles using a number of unique and interesting features that can help make this website more interactive and more fulfilling.
Compared to the formula of most online dating websites, which focus on attractiveness, personality, occupation, and salary level, a religious dating website like CatholicMatch focuses mainly on religious beliefs and values relating to one’s relationship with God and Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, CatholicMatch is only available as of now in the United States and Canada as of this moment and hopefully will be expanded to other countries in the near future. Because it’s only available in these two countries, CatholicMatch can only be accessed in the English language but there may be changes in the future to allow this website to be displayed in certain foreign languages such as Spanish and French.
CatholicMatch currently also has five hundred thousand members registered in its’ database, which makes it a viable option for you if you’re looking to use a Catholic dating website with a large amount of members.
If most Catholic singles are interested primarily in promoting God, faith, and family, then it’s likely they’ll see eye to eye when it comes to other interests and hobbies that they would also probably find in common.
Catholic Match Review
Main Features
- Creating a Profile
When you sign-up as a free user of CatholicMatch, you’ll be able to create a free profile, which will help you to interact with other members, search through the website, and take advantage of other useful features.
When you start to create your profile, you will be asked to enter in some information about yourself. This information is quite basic, but is also personal in that you will have to give both your first name and your last name, your country of residence, your zip code, your gender (male or female), current marital status (single, in a relationship, married, etc.) along with your date of birth.
Most of this information will remain private in nature but make sure that you check your account settings to verify that this information is not public.
- Personal Background
After you complete that information, you’ll have to describe your personal appearance in a number of ways. For this section of the profile, you can be as general or as specific as you would like to be.
You’ll have to decide whether or not you would like to share your height, weight, eye color, hair color, body type (athletic, overweight, average, etc.), race, ethnic background, and if you have any tattoos or piercings that other users should know about.
In addition, there is a ‘habits & travel section where you can discuss some of your personal passions and hobbies. For example, you can divulge to other users whether you are an ‘early bird’, someone who wakes up early in the morning; or a ‘night owl’, and someone who stays up late at night.
You can give additional details about how often do you exercise, what is your food diet like, how often do you dine out or do you enjoy cooking. What your political beliefs are generally, what your smoking and/or drinking habits are, how often do you watch television, would you be open to a long-distance relationship, and would you be willing to relocate to a new city or a new country if it meant being with your boyfriend or girlfriend.
- Marriage and Children
To expand upon your background and since this is a family-oriented online dating website, CatholicMatch is going to want to know if you would like to have children in the future and if you would be willing to raise them Catholic.
They also would like details on how many children you would want to have and if you have some children already. When it comes to the other topic of marriage, CatholicMatch will inquire about if you plan on marrying within the Catholic Church and if you do plan on getting married at all to begin with.
‘Work & Education is important and is also its’ own section within CatholicMatch so you can choose to share details about your education level, where did you attend school, your current job occupation, and if you speak any foreign languages.
Most of this personal information is voluntary so if you do not feel comfortable sharing these details publicly on your CatholicMatch profile, you won’t have to do so.
- Faith
Perhaps the most important section of your CatholicMatch profile is the ‘Faith’ section, in which you can discuss your Catholicism, your beliefs, your values, and your relationship with God. In this section, you’ll be asked many questions regarding your Catholic faith.
These questions can range from being asked about, “How often do you attend mass?” “What are your favorite prayers?” and “Which church do you belong to?”
Because of your answers to these questions, other users will get a better sense of what kind of Catholic you are when they visit your profile and how devout or not as devout you happen to be.
Lastly, for this section, you will be asked about how your beliefs align with those of the Catholic Church and how closely or loosely do you happen to follow the doctrine of the church, especially when it comes to pre-martial sex, the Immaculate Conception, and contraception.
- Favorites and Interests
For your ‘favorites and interests’, CatholicMatch will ask you up to ten questions, which you can choose to answer or not. These questions are various in nature but can include topics such as: your favorite movies, your favorite books, what kind of music do you like, which hobbies do you enjoy, which sports do you enjoy playing, etc.
- Your Own Words
In the ‘Your Own Words’ section, you’ll have the ability to express yourself freely by writing short essays on different topics focusing on you.
You can talk about different topics such as your relationship with the Catholic Church, what hobbies and interests you enjoy the most, etc.
There’s also another essay question, which you can decide to answer or not, that asks about what kind of characteristics and qualities are you looking for in a future romantic partner.
- Emotigrams
These other main features include the ability to upload pictures of yourself to your profile, send ‘emotigrams’, which can help to express your feelings for another members of the website who you find special.
- Temperament Test
Luckily, that’s not all you can do with a free membership as you can use the ‘search’ function to find other members who have piqued your interest, take the ‘Temperament’ test, which analyzes your emotions and feelings in the hopes that your results will fall in line with a number of other users of the opposite sex.
- Personal Interview
Lastly, you can create a ‘personal interview’, which highlights the questions that you would like to ask of other users to help ascertain if they would be good at being a potential romantic partner or if they would make a good Catholic friend for you.
Additional Features
Unfortunately, not every feature can be made available to free users so there are some additional features that can only be accessed if you pay for them as part of your upgraded, paid membership subscription.
- Private Messaging
When you are a paid member, you are afforded certain privileges such as the ability to have a private messaging system, which will allow you to send and receive an unlimited amount of messages to the membership base of CatholicMatch.
- Forums
In addition, you will have access to the official CatholicMatch community forums where you can seek advice and tips on dating and forming relationships with other Catholic singles. As well as be able to talk about various other topics such as faith, music, books, politics, sports, movies, etc.
- Live Chat
If you are looking to engage one-on-one with other members beyond just sending and receiving private messages, you have the option to do so thanks to the ‘live chat’ feature, which can put you immediately in touch with another member.
- Personal Emotigram Messages
While free users can send and receive ‘emotigrams’, they are unable to add personal messages to their gram as is possible when you upgrade to a paid membership.
If you would like your ‘emotigram’ to stand out among all those that have been sent to another user, it would be best to include a personal message, which could catch their eye.
- Advanced Search
Beyond just the basic ‘search’ function, paid users are also able to gain access to ‘advanced searching’, which can expand upon their criteria and what they’re looking for in terms of location, age range, level of faith, etc.
- Priority Access to Customer Service
Lastly, you can rely upon the fact that as a paid user of the website, you can gain priority access and support of the CatholicMatch customer service which is quite useful to have especially if you’re undergoing a problem with payment or are being harassed by another member.
Costs of Membership
Luckily, membership costs for a user who would like to upgrade to a paid subscription aren’t that expensive and are affordable depending on which kind of plan you’re looking for.
The membership costs of CatholicMatch are updated very infrequently and last were changed back in November of 2009. It’s important to check their website out every now and then to see if the ‘pricing’ has changed at all.
There are various ways in which you can pay for your upgraded membership including sending a money order, writing out a check, or by using most major credit cards.
Your membership will automatically renew on its own unless you decide to change this setting manually before the end of your current membership. In order to do this, you need to go to the ‘account’ page in your settings and change the automatic renewal to ‘off’ instead of ‘on.’
There are three options to consider when it comes to signing-up for a paid subscription with CatholicMatch:
- One Month Membership
For one-month total, you’ll pay $25, which can be advantageous if you’re simply looking to try out this website for a little bit.
- Three Months Membership
The second option is longer but is also less expensive compared to the first option. For a three-month membership, you’ll pay $16.65 per month for a total of $50 for the entire membership. This means that you’ll be able to save about 33% when you choose the second option over the first one.
- Six Months Membership
The last option is the least expensive of the three options but is also the longest in terms of total commitment. For a six-month paid membership, you’ll pay $12.50 for each month for a total of $75.
This is simply the cheapest option of the three options as you save up to 50% with this subscription.
Positives and Negatives
Positives:
CatholicMatch has a lot of good things going for it as a Christian-niche dating website.
- Largest Catholic Dating Site
It is the largest dating site out there specifically for Catholic singles who are looking to find love or a relationship.
- Plenty of Useful Features
There are a lot of useful features for both free users and paid users so that every member can find something on the website that appeals to them.
- Costs Less
The website is also less expensive compared to bigger general dating websites like eHarmony and Match.
- Active Community
Lastly, there’s such a tight-knit Catholic community on this website due to specific features such as the message board forums as well as the fact that any member can set-up a meet-up event in their neighborhood so that Catholic singles can get together, network, and even date each other.
Negatives:
Luckily, there are only a few negative aspects to CatholicMatch as a dating website.
- Limited Messaging
When you’re a free user, it can be very difficult to get to know other members because your messaging options are limited compared to paid users.
- Unable to Distinguis Paid and Free Users
Any user of CatholicMatch can’t distinguish which members are paid users or are free users. This can be quite confusing.
Conclusion
For CatholicMatch, it’s not just about love of each other as a couple but a mutual love of God and Jesus Christ. This online dating website is more than just couples meeting, getting to know each, and falling in love. CatholicMatch desires to create a stronger, more unified community of believers who have the ability to strengthen their faith.
There are simply not as many algorithms or specific formulas used by CatholicMatch in order to bring singles together. Instead, CatholicMatch focuses mainly on religious beliefs, personal values, and commitment to the Catholic Church when it comes to singles being able to find dating options and a relationship.
CatholicMatch is also the largest Catholic dating website on the Internet and adds up to ten thousand new members each month and as over five times as many current active members when compared to other Catholic dating websites on the market.
If you would like to be apart of this particular dating community to find love with another Catholic, strengthen your ties with other members of this religious community, or just to make new friends, CatholicMatch may be the right option for you.
You may also like our Christian Cafe dating site review.
Have you ever used Catholic Match? Did you have a positive experience with this dating website and were you able to find your match?
Mary Ann Barcroft says
I am very interested in this Catholic dating site, however when I enter my city and diocese showing I am in Canada matches only come up.from the United States. How can I set this up so I get matches from where I live or close to me?