Our Catholic Yearbook

Well, it's that time of year again! The Annuario Pontificio has been released. Like last year, I thought I would go over some of the more interesting data, and I've highlighted some of the very interesting data.

• The Catholic Church is now composed of 1.196 million members.
• This is a growth of 1.3%
• 8 new diocese were erected
• 1 new personal ordinariate was erected (thank you anglicanorum coetibus)
• The number of Catholics in regards to the total population:
• S. Amberica (-.20%)
• Europe (-.22%)
• Africa (+.40%)
• S.E. Asia (+.40%)
• The U.S. still has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world
• The numbers of priests and deacons has increased!
• Priests have increased from 410,593 to 412,236
• Deacons (permanent) have increased from 38,155 to 39,564
• 64.3% of all permanent deacons can be found in North America
• 33.2% of all permanent deacons can be found in Europe
• The numbers of religious:
• Male religious (increase of 436): 54,229 to 54,665
• Female religious (decrease of 7,436): 729,371 to 721,935

I find the percentage of permanent deacons in the U.S. particularly interesting. We have a ridiculous number of permanent deacons. This can't simply be a result of the priest shortage, else Europe would have a lot more than they do (Europe is also made up of more countries and is having a harder time with the priest shortage than in North America, so their numbers should be up).

Please, sign my "yearbook" by leaving a comment and telling me your thoughts on the new data from the Vatican!