Vatican: World's Catholics number 1.166 billion

Feb 20, 2010, 14:10 GMT

Vatican City - The number of Catholics in the world has 'increased slightly' to 1.166 billion, the Vatican said Saturday reporting its latest church statistics.

The figures cover the year 2008 and are contained in the 2010 edition of the Pontifical Yearbook which was presented to Pope Benedict XVI at a Vatican ceremony.

They also registered a decrease of nearly 8 per cent in the number of nuns since the year 2000, with the steepest fall in Europe (minus 17.6 per cent) and the Americas (minus 12.9 per cent).

Some 19 million more Catholics were baptised in 2008 compared to the previous year - an increase of 1.7 per cent, the Vatican said.

Catholics make up some 17.4 per cent of the global population, a slight increase from the 17.33 per cent in 2007, according to the Vatican estimates.

In what it called a 'positive but moderate evolution,' the Vatican registered a 1 per cent increase in the number of priests to a total of 409,166 during the period 2000-2008.

The total number of candidates to the priesthood rose by 1 per cent in 2008 compared to the previous year.

Increases were registered in Africa (3.6 per cent), Asia (4.4 per cent) and Oceania (6.5 per cent). However, the number of candidates for the priesthood in Europe has decreased by 4.3 per cent, while in the Americas the figures remained unchanged.