The number of Catholics and permanent deacons in the world rose in 2022, while the number of seminarians, priests, men and women in religious orders, and baptisms declined, according to Vatican statistics. Source: OSV News.
At the end of 2022, the number of Catholics in the world reached 1.389 billion, up 0.79 per cent from 1.378 billion Catholics at the end of 2021, according to the Vatican’s Central Office of Church Statistics.
By contrast, the United Nations estimated the world’s population increased by 0.83 per cent over the same period to a total of just over 8 billion people at the end of 2022, marking the first time it passed that milestone.
The Vatican agency, Fides, published a brief overview of the global numbers on October 17.
The Vatican’s statistical yearbook cautioned that its numbers were based on the information it received from its surveys and that not all jurisdictions sent information. Mainland China, for example, had missing data throughout the yearbook.
The number of Catholics “does not include those in countries that because of their present situation have not been included in the survey”, it said, adding that it estimated that number to be about an additional 5 million Catholics.
While Catholics remained about 17.7 per cent of the global population, their numbers grew in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, said the summary, which was based on numbers reported December 31, 2022. Only Europe saw a drop with 474,000 fewer Catholics.
While the number of Catholics is increasing, the administration of the sacrament of baptism has decreased worldwide. It fell from 17,932,891 baptisms administered in 1998 to 13,327,037 in 2022, according to Fides’ summary report. A peak was reported during the Holy Year 2000 when 18,408,076 baptisms were administered worldwide.
The Catholic Church had 5353 bishops at the end of 2022, a slight increase of 13 bishops at the end of 2021. The majority of them are serving in the Americas and Europe.
The total number of diocesan and religious order priests decreased slightly by 142 men to a total of 407,730, the Vatican office said. However, while the number of diocesan priests decreased globally, the number of religious-order priests increased by 297 men.
The number of Catholics per priest increased slightly to 3408 Catholics per priest.
The number of permanent deacons – 50,159 – saw a 1.99 per cent increase over the previous year, with the most growth in Europe.
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Statistics show a drop in baptisms, priests and religious (Carol Glatz, OSV News)
