Monday 31 March 2008

Muslims up, Catholics down

Today we learn that Muslims now outnumber Roman Catholics for first time in our history.

The Vatican's 2008 yearbook says Muslims made up 19.2% of the world's population and Catholics 17.4%

As a lapsed Catholic myself, I have contributed to this downward decline.

"For the first time in history we are no longer at the top - the Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Formenti says in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's newspaper.

However, as a good spin doctor, he says that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians make up 33%, about two billion people.

There are around 1.13 billion Catholics, and it's estimated that there's 1.3 billion Muslims.

It was said that Catholics as a proportion of the world's population is stable, and the percentage of Muslims is growing because of higher birth rates.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do we lets ourselves be divided by Religions ... we are ALL ONE ! ... every Religion is based on the same core principles ... GOD IS ONE !

Anonymous said...

I agree anonymous. If you look back in history, how many wars have been started by religion. Every religion thinks that it is the only true religion that will get you to heaven. Even Christian religions disagree with each other. They all say there is one God, so there shouldnt be a problem.