New Church statistics reveal more Catholics, fewer vocations
The Holy See publishes the 2024 Pontifical Yearbook and the 2022 Statistical Yearbook of the Church, detailing the numbers of bishops, priests, men and women religious, and deacons throughout the world.
The number of baptized Catholics has increased globally, rising from 1.376 billion in 2021 to 1.390 billion in 2022, with a relative increase of 1.0%.
The rate of change varied from continent to continent. Africa recorded an increase of 3%, with the number of Catholics rising from 265 to 273 million in the same period. Europe shows a situation of stability (in 2021 and 2022 Catholics amount to 286 million). The Americas and Asia recorded a significant growth in the number of Catholics (+0.9% and +0.6%, respectively), a trend entirely in line with the demographic development of these two continents. Oceania reported stability, with lower absolute values.
The number of Bishops during the biennium 2021-2022 increased by 0.25%, going from 5,340 to 5,353 Bishops. Much of this growth was found in Africa and Asia, with relative variations of 2.1 and 1.4 percent, respectively. A situation of stability was visible in the Americas (with 2,000 Bishops) and in Oceania (with 130), while a slight decline (-0.6%) was recorded in Europe (from 1,676 to 1,666 units).
