Statistical portrait of Catholicism

[stumbler]

Vatican, Jul. 07 (CWNews.com) - The instrumentum laboris, or working document for the October meeting of the Synod of Bishops, presents a statistical sketch of the life of the Catholic Church throughout the world. . . .

World’s Catholic population

• grew by 15 million between 2002 and 2003.
• 1.086 billion Catholics in the world now

Growth in Catholic population
Africa - a 4.5 percent increase in the year
Asia - a 2.2 percent growth rate
Oceania - 1.3 percent
Americas - a 1.2 percent growth rate
Europe - no significant change

Location of Catholics
Western hemisphere - 49.8 percent
Europe - 25.8 percent
Africa - 13.2 percent
Asia - 10.4 percent
Oceania - less than 1 percent

Population density
Americas - 62.5 percent are Catholic
Europe - 39.6 percent
Oceania - 26.4 percent
Africa - 16.9 percent
Asia - less than 3 percent

Catholic Clergy
Catholic bishops increased 25 percent in the past 25 years
1978 - 3,714
2003 - 4,742

Catholic priests decline
1978 - 421,000
2003 - 405,000

Caused by:
Religious Orders decline 13 percent
Diocesan priests grow by 2 percent.

Religious orders
Men’s religious orders dropping by 28 percent
1978 - 76,000
2003 - 55,000

Women’s orders
drop by 22 percent
1978 - 991,000
2003 - 776,000

Ratio of laymen to priests
1978 - 1,797 Catholics for each priest worldwide
2003 - 2,677 Catholics for each priest worldwide

 

[stumbler]

Source:
cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=38279

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Is there such a high ratio because the numer of priests are going down or because the Church is so huge and growing by the millions each year?

According to this data there are about 1/2 million priest in the world, yet in this last year about 15 million people became Catholic!

 

[Nohome]

Catholic Dude:

Is there such a high ratio because the numer of priests are going down or because the Church is so huge and growing by the millions each year?

Good question, the statistics are not presented in such manner as to allow a simple comparitive analysis. Mathmatically, a change to the smaller population has a greater affect on the ratio, but what is 4% over 25 years compared to 1.5% annually?

What this does suggest is that the priest shortage is getting worse. As the Catholic population increases, you would expect some increase in vocations. The fact that the number of priests dropped while the pool of potential priests increased indicates that something isn’t right.
Catholic Dude:

According to this data there are about 1/2 million priest in the world, yet in this last year about 15 million people became Catholic!

The RCC has never done a real good job of counting its congregation. All that number indicates is how many were baptized. It says nothing about Mass attendance, parish participation or the age when members enter the Church. If you ask me, the one billion number thrown around is bogus. Mass attendance alone would make the number closer to 333,000,000.

Nohome

 

[trth_skr]

Also, I have seen other statistics that indicate that many of the priests and religious are near retirement age. I do not recall if this was US or worldwide.

Also keep in mind the rumors that a document was circulated just prior to the recent conclave that elected Benedict XVI. This document was rumored to paint a picture of the Church which led to the election of the “most conservative” candidate- Ratzinger.

God, give Benedict the ability to deal with this problem.

Mark
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com

 

[Veritas]

stumbler:

Religious orders
Men’s religious orders dropping by 28 percent
1978 - 76,000
2003 - 55,000

Women’s orders
drop by 22 percent
1978 - 991,000
2003 - 776,000

Are there really 15X as many women religious as Men? Where are they all?