How many Catholics are there?

Andrew Brown wonders.

Catholic populations in Britain and Ireland now level

This seems to be the most interesting finding of the respected CARA institute at Georgetown University in Washington. In 2008, the Catholic populations of Britain and of Ireland were roughly the same: 5.2m in each case.

The study also confirms that, despite being many fewer than Anglicans, there are Catholics in church to Sundays than their Anglican counterparts -- 35 per cent of Catholics go to Mass once a week or more.  

Although fewer in number, Catholics in Britain are more likely than Anglicans to indicate that they regularly attend religious services. Thirty-five percent of British Catholics say they attend Mass once a week or more often and 19% say they do not attend weekly but go to Mass at least once a month. By comparison, just one in ten Anglicans attend services weekly and 13 percent attend at least once a month (all of these attendance estimates are likely overestimated due to social desirability pressures; see: The Nuances of Accurately Measuring Mass Attendance). The difference is very significant because it means that the number of weekly church attending Catholics (3.2% of the total adult population) is greater than the number of weekly church attending Anglicans (2.8% of the total adult population) in Britain.

Here is the relevant table:

'Guardian' surveys Catholicism worldwide

It seems to be booming:

According to the World Christian Database, the proportion of the planet's population professing one or other of its four biggest faiths (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism) rose steeply in the mid-1970s and has been climbing rapidly ever since. By 2005, the figure was 73%.

Strong in the developing world where birth rates are high, Catholicism has done well out of the contemporary "faith boom". Whatever problems Benedict may have, numbers are not yet among them. His church's statisticians estimate that the number of baptised Catholics reached 1,166 million at the end of 2008, a rise of 1.7% on a year earlier. Over the intervening 12 months, the Catholic population as a share of the global total edge up too.

The once-a-Catholic-always-a-Catholic method used for the Vatican's count is debatable: it takes no account of those who "lapse". But even by a more rigorous measure of belief and conviction, Benedict's religion is growing. The number of Catholic priests continues to rise, and in 2008 it reached almost 410,000. But while the number of aspirants to the priesthood grew that year in Africa, Asia and Oceania (and remained broadly stable in the Americas), it shrank – and at a striking rate of more than 4% – in Europe.

That points to Catholicism's outstanding challenge – the secularisation of its traditional heartland. This was the issue that weighed most heavily on the minds of the cardinals who gathered in Rome five years ago to elect a successor to John Paul II. They decided that the best man to tackle it would be the late pope's long-time collaborator, Joseph Ratzinger. And to make the point that he too saw the re-evangelisation of Europe as his top priority, the new pope took the name of the continent's patron saint.

Andrea Tonielli, a respected Vatican-watching Italian journalist, author of Attaco a Ratzinger, is quoted:

The pope "does not think of the re-Christianisation of Europe in terms of a military-style re-conquest. It is not a question of numbers". The key to his thinking, Tornielli believes, is his use of the phrase "creative minority". In a speech Benedict made last year in the Czech Republic, he argued that "it is usually creative minorities that determine the future and, in this regard, the Catholic church must understand that it is a creative minority which has a heritage of values that are not things of the past, but a very lively and relevant reality".

Some of Benedict's supporters believe he wants a smaller, but theologically more homogenous (and reactionary) group of true believers who can hunker down and wait for more propitious times. Tornielli thinks that is a misinterpretation. "The idea of a 'hard core' is essentially military and defensive. I think the pope simply believes that the only way to get the people of our times to encounter God is by bearing Christian witness, living Christian values. It is, after all, not so unlike what happened 2,000 years ago."