The number of Catholics are increasing worldwide as well as permanent bishops and deacons, but priests, seminarians and religious figures are decreasing, according to recent statistics.
These findings were released by the Churches’ Central Statistics Office, which drafts the Pontifical Yearbook 2020 and the Annuarium Statisticum Eccleasiae 2018, last week.
Between the years 2013 and 2018, there was an increase of about 6% of Catholics worldwide, which went from almost 1,254 to 1,329 million, an increase of 75 million people.
Of the total number of Catholics, 48% live in America, 21.5% in Europe and 11.1% in Asia, where there was an increase from 10.9% to 11.1%
In the same period (2013-18), the number of bishops grew by more than 3.9% from 5,173 to 5,377. There was a marked increase in Oceania (4.6%), followed by America and Asia (both with 4% and 5%), Europe (4.1%) and Africa (1.4%).
However, the number of priests fell, decreasing by 0.3% in that five-year time frame.
In America, the number of priests is stationary, there are about 123,000, while in Europe and Oceania there are drops of more than 7% and just over 1% respectively.
Seminarians
Across the five years, there has been a growth in the number of Asian clergy from 14.8% to 16.5% and African clergy from 10.1% to 11.5%, while for the European clergy there has been a dramatic decline from 44.3% to 41.3%.
The number of seminarians is also in decline from 118,251 in 2013 to 115,880 in 2018 – a decrease of 2%.
On the other hand, the number of permanent deacons is growing from 43,195 in 2013 to 47,504 in 2018 – an increase of 10%.
The number of consecrated religious men continues to decline (8%), with the figure passing from over 55,000 in 2013 to less than 51,000 in 2018.
Even for professed religious women there is a strong downward trend with a 7.5% contraction. The total number of professed religious women, decreased from almost 694,000 in 2013 to less than 642,000 five years later.
As of 2018, Catholics made up just under 18% of the world’s population.