On the ninety-eighth World Mission Day, Agenzia Fides presented some data obtained from the latest “Statistical Yearbook of the Church.” In general, the percentage of Catholics of the world population is growing very slightly, at 17.7% (+0.03 percentage points): Africa (+7,271,000), the Americas (+5,912,000), Asia (+889,000) and Oceania (+123,000), while in Europe there continues to be a decline (-474,000), in line with other relevant demographic trends.
Over the span of twenty-five years, from 1998 to 2022, data on the global Catholic Church shows a steady increase in the number of Catholics, with the percentage of the world population rising from 17.4% to 17.7% (peaking at 17.8% in 2014), though this percentage has remained relatively stable since 2015. The number of priests has also grown, increasing by 3,102, while the number of non-ordained religious brothers has fallen below 60,000, and the total number of religious women has decreased by 255,551.