Tuesday 7 September 2010

The Church in Britain: Vatican statistics

The Vatican has released official figures for the Church in Great Britain (ie not Northern Ireland):
 Great Britain has a surface area of 230,762 square kilometres and a population of 59,381,000 of whom 5,264,000 (8.87 percent) are Catholic. There are 32 ecclesiastical circumscriptions and 2,977 parishes. Currently there are 59 bishops, 5,225 priests, 6,497 religious, 160 lay members of secular institutes and 34,669 catechists. Minor seminarians number 2, and major seminarians 245.

A total of 806,334 children and young people attend 2,828 centres of Catholic education, from kindergartens to universities. Other institutions belonging to the Church, or run by priests or religious in Great Britain include 8 hospitals, 1 clinic, 171 homes for the elderly or disabled, 79 orphanages and nurseries, 94 family counselling centres and other pro-life centres, 147 centres for education and social rehabilitation, and 31 institutions of other kinds.