{"id":24389,"date":"2009-03-03T21:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-04T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/03\/looking-at-the-church-by-the-n\/"},"modified":"2009-03-03T21:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-04T01:30:00","slug":"looking-at-the-church-by-the-n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/03\/looking-at-the-church-by-the-n\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking at the Church by the numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"DISPLAY: inline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/Catholics%20in%20the%20world.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 20px 20px\" height=\"264\" alt=\"Catholics in the world.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/Catholics%20in%20the%20world-thumb-275x264.jpg\" width=\"275\" \/><\/a><\/span>According to the recently published <i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal\">Annuario Pontificio<\/i>, the papal yearbook we see the number of Catholics in the world has increased by 1.4%, with particularly in <st1:place>Oceania<\/st1:place> and <st1:place>Africa<\/st1:place>. Vocations to the priesthood grew overall by 0.4%, though they decreased in <st1:place>Europe<\/st1:place>. <br style=\"mso-special-character: line-break\" \/><br style=\"mso-special-character: line-break\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">The Press Office of the Holy See stated that the worldwide Catholic Church included 1.147 billion people in 2007, <u>a 16 million increase since 2006, <\/u>and compared with the map to the right, the current&nbsp;numbers are significant. The numbers of baptized grew significantly in <st1:place>Oceania<\/st1:place> and <st1:place>Africa<\/st1:place> by 4.7% and 3%, respectively. Also positive was the growth made in <st1:place>Asia<\/st1:place> (+1.7%) and <st1:place>Europe<\/st1:place> (+0.8%). While North and South American Catholics decreased by 0.1%, they still represent half of all Catholics on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>One notices moderate growth in the number of priests which according to those in the know, this trend began in 2000 after more than 20 years of steady losses. The year ending in 2007 saw the presbyterate rise from 405,000 to 408,000. <st1:place>Africa<\/st1:place> and <st1:place>Asia<\/st1:place> reported strong numbers, whereas numbers were stable in North and <st1:place>South America<\/st1:place>. Of course, the continents of <st1:place>Europe<\/st1:place> and <st1:place>Oceania<\/st1:place> reported significant declines during the same period. Looking more globally at the situation of vocations to the priesthood, the numbers increased by 0.4%, approaching 116,000. <st1:place>Africa<\/st1:place> and <st1:place>Asia<\/st1:place> grew in priestly vocations, while <st1:place>Europe<\/st1:place> and <st1:country -region><st1:place>America<\/st1:place><\/st1:country> registered respective reductions of 2.1% and 1%.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><o:p><font face=\"Times New Roman\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">The statistical information is based on gather stats from 2007.<\/font><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><o:p><font face=\"Times New Roman\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\" color=\"#000000\" size=\"3\">The BBC has an article on the increase of Catholic priests, read about it <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/europe\/7916749.stm\">here<\/a>. <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the recently published Annuario Pontificio, the papal yearbook we see the number of Catholics in the world has increased by 1.4%, with particularly in Oceania and Africa. Vocations to the priesthood grew overall by 0.4%, though they decreased in Europe. The Press Office of the Holy See stated that the worldwide Catholic Church &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2009\/03\/looking-at-the-church-by-the-n\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Looking at the Church by the numbers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[32092],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}