Number of baptized Catholics in the world grows by 15 million

 

Vatican City, (EWTN News/CNA): Catholics in the world continue to increase in number by the millions, according to the latest official statistics from the Catholic Church. Although the number of baptized Catholics in on the rise, Church officials say that with the exception of Asia and Africa, the "crisis remains" in vocations to the religious life throughout the globe.

The 2011 Pontifical Yearbook was presented to Pope Benedict XVI on the morning of Feb. 19 by a delegation led by his “number two,” secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and members of the Central Office of Church Statistics.

The book contains information on all Church jurisdictions and organizations, religious and cultural institutes and structures worldwide. Some information was released about novelties in dioceses and other church jurisdictions created in 2010 yet the main focus is on statistics from 2008-2009.

The standout figure of the new yearbook is the jump in the number of newly baptized Catholics over the two-year period.

In the 2,956 church jurisdictions in the world, the number jumped by 15 million from 2008. The total number of living baptized Catholics on the globe in 2009 reached 1,181,000,000.

North and South America account for a fraction under half of this number. European Catholics amount to 24 percent, Africa rings in at 15 percent and Asia at just over 10 percent. The remaining number, totaling less than one percentage point, live in Oceania.

\Growth figures for all continents were not provided for the individual continents in the Vatican statement.

The yearbook also showed that the number of bishops and priests grew in direct proportion to the number of Catholics worldwide. For the 1.3 percent more Catholics in the world, there were 1.3 percent more of both bishops and priests in the period from 2008 - 2009. In 2009, there were 5,065 bishops and 410,593 priests.

The numbers also show a net increase of priests on every continent except Europe, where both religious and diocesan numbers decreased over the two-year period examined.