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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Catholic Demographics and the Changing Face of the Church

The latest yearbook of the Catholic Church is out and it reveals interesting facts.

The Church is growing rapidly in the third-world while barely increasing in Europe. The trend in Europe; however, can be thought more positively as the overall population of Europe dwindles. Perhaps a growing Catholic body in Europe will be able one day to reverse the trend of negative population growth. Perhaps not.

The continent with the largest growth of Catholic population was in Africa where there was a Catholic growth of 3.1% compared to the overall growth in Africa of 2.5%.

The trend has been noticed well before. Read The Next Christendom to find out more about the future of Christianity.

(Hat Tip: The Cafeteria Is Closed)

2 comments:

Jay@Soob said...

Odd. I'd have guessed South America. Sort of brings home the fact that many of us are only beginning to understand the intricacies of Africa.

Dan tdaxp said...

I read the other day that Church-going Catholics now, or would soon, outnumber Church-going Anglicans in England and Wales.

The COE may soon face the thread of a disestablishment drive which has both majority-secular and majority-religious support.