Number of Catholics in the world tops 1.4 billion

By CathNews New Zealand

March 25th, 2025

The crowd waits for Pope Francis' arrival to lead the World Youth Day prayer vigil with young people at Tejo Park in Lisbon, Portugal, on August 5, 2023. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

The number of Catholics in the world has risen to more than 1.4 billion, according to Vatican research. Source: Vatican News.

The global Catholic population increased by 1.15 per cent between 2022 and 2023, rising from approximately 1.39 billion to 1.406 billion. That growth trend matches that of the previous snapshot from 2021 to 2022.

Data on statistics and trends for Catholics worldwide is published in the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2023 and the Pontifical Yearbook 2025, which were published recently by the Vatican.

The data for 2022 to 2023 shows that 47.8 per cent of the world’s Catholics live in the Americas, 20.4 per cent in Europe, 20 per cent in Africa, 11 per cent in Asia and 1 per cent in Oceania.

The Catholics of Oceania numbered just over 11 million in 2023, an increase of 1.9 per cent compared to 2022.

There were 406,996 priests in the world in 2023, a decrease of 734 compared to 2022. The Vatican data looked at the ratio of priests in a continent to the total number of priests worldwide, and compared that to the ratio for numbers of Catholics in general.

“In the case of a perfect balance between the presence and the need for pastoral activity, the percentage composition of priests should coincide, for each territorial area examined, with that of Catholics,” a Vatican News report stated.

“In reality, a comparison between the percentage composition of priests and Catholics shows that in 2023, significant discrepancies were recorded.”

The percentages of priests exceed those of Catholics in North America (10.3 per cent of the world’s priests compared to 6.6 per cent of the world’s Catholics), in Europe (38.1 per cent of priests and 20.4 per cent of Catholics) and in Oceania (1.1 per cent of priests and 0.8 per cent of Catholics).

Permanent deacons constitute the group of clergy that is growing most significantly. In 2023, their number reached 51,433 compared to the 50,150 recorded in 2022, an increase of 2.6 per cent.

Significant growth rates in the number of deacons were observed in Oceania (up 10.8 per cent) and the Americas (up 3.8 per cent), while slight declines were recorded in Africa and Europe.

Declines were recorded in the numbers of women religious, male religious who are not priests and seminarians.

FULL STORY

New Church statistics reveal growing Catholic population, fewer pastoral workers – Vatican News (Vatican News)