Presentation Pontifical Yearbook 2009

(February 28, 2009) Spread over 2936 dioceses and ecclesial territories, the presence of baptized believers in the world in 2007, remains stable at around 17.3% of the world’s population as a result of expansion in the number of Catholics (1.4%) to substantially similar pace to that of the world's population over the two year period. This is given in the Pontifical Year Book 2009 presented to the Holy Father on Saturday, 28 February 2009 morning, by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State, and Archbishop Fernando Filoni, deputy to the Secretary of State for General Affairs. In 2007, there are just fewer than 1147 million Catholics, compared with 1131 million in 2006. The number of bishops in the worldhas increased, between 2006 to 2007, from 4898 to 4946, an increase of 1%. Continent with the largest increase is that of Oceania (+ 4.7%), followed by Africa (+ 3.0%) and Asia (1.7%), while Europe shows + 0.8% growth. At the same time America showed a rate of change of - 0.1%. However, Europe and America, alone contain around 70% of the total Catholic population. The increase in the number of priests in recent years has been moderate. The number of priests increased from 405,178 in 2000 to 407,262 in 2006 and 408,024 in 2007. Africa showed the growth of 26.7% and Asia, 21.2% in the period 2000-2007 while America remained almost stationary, and Europe and Oceania recorded negative growth rates, 6.8% and 5.5% respectively. The deacons showed a significant increase of 4.1% in 2007 over the previous year. Globally, the number of candidates for the priesthood has increased from 115,480 in 2006 to 115,919 in 2007, an increase of 0.4%, with Africa and Asia showing a significant growth and Europe and America indicating negative growth.