Catholic numbers on the rise in Africa, Asia

Filipino Catholics attend an Easter Mass on March 31, 2013 in Pandan, Catanduanes. The number of Catholic priests and believers in the world is on the rise, a Vatican report showed on Monday, May 13, 2013, with gains in Africa and Asia offsetting a slump in Europe and the Americas. PHOTO BY RICK ALBERTO

VATICAN CITY—The number of Catholic priests and believers in the world is on the rise, a Vatican report showed on Monday, with gains in Africa and Asia offsetting a slump in Europe and the Americas.

The world’s Catholics rose from 1.196 billion to 1.214 billion between 2010 and 2011, an increase of 1.5 percent, according to the Church’s annual statistics report.

The gain outstripped the increase in the global population, which rose by 1.23 percent over the same period, the report said.

The biggest rise among believers was seen in Africa (up 4.3 percent) and Asia (up 2.0 percent), while numbers in the Americas and Europe were broadly flat, up 0.3 percent.

Meanwhile, the total number of Catholic priests globally grew from 405,067 in 2001 to 413,418 at the end of 2011.

Again this rise was driven by Africa—where the number jumped 39.5 percent—and Asia, up 32 percent.

Over the same period, Europe saw a 9.0 percent drop in priest numbers.

The number of baptized Catholics in the world was stable, at around 17.5 percent of the total population.

The majority of Catholics live in the Americas (48.8 percent), followed by Europe (23.5 percent), Africa (16 percent), Asia (10.9 percent) and Oceania (0.8 percent).