In 2023, the Catholic Church counted 1,405,454,000 Catholics, or 17.8% of the world's population. This is according to statistics published on October 17, 2025, by Fides, a news agency affiliated with the Vatican.
While the number of priests is declining everywhere except in Africa and Asia, the number of Catholics in Europe is increasing, breaking with the decline recorded the previous year. The Catholic Church also has fewer seminarians, and the decline is accelerating in Asian seminaries.
As it does every year, the Vatican agency Fides, the news agency of the Pontifical Mission Societies, has published statistics providing an overview of the evolution of the Church, particularly in terms of the number of faithful, priests, seminarians, and religious — for the year 2023 (you can find the PDF here).
Here, we summarize some of the most important points of these statistics, which concern 1,405,454,000 registered Catholics. It should be noted that Fides' data does not distinguish between South America and North America, which are grouped under the generic term “America.” This methodology does not allow for the identification of relevant trends for these regions, as the two geographical areas do not share the same ecclesial realities and challenges.
There are more Catholics in the world, even in Europe
The world's population continues to grow, as does the number of Catholics, with nearly 16 million more faithful in 2023 than in the previous year. This is the first finding of the Fides statistical data. This increase in Catholics in the world population (+0.1% over one year) is observed on all continents, including Europe.
This is a reversal of the previous year's trend, which had seen a decline in 2022 compared to 2021. Europe has 286 million Catholics, an increase of 740,000 in one year, bringing the total proportion of Catholics to nearly 40% of the continent's population.
Africa has seen the largest increase in the number of Catholics (+8,309,000, reaching a total of about 281 million, nearly 20% of the continental population of nearly 1.4 billion). It’s followed by America — remember, that’s North and South America together — (+5,668,000, or for a total of 671,877,000, approximately 64% of the more than 1 billion Americans).
In Asia, the number of Catholics has increased by nearly one million, but the proportion of the faithful in the continent's overall population (155 million out of nearly 4.7 billion) has not changed and remains at 3.3%.
In Oceania, despite an increase in the number of Catholics, the Catholic percentage of the overall population has even fallen by 1%, with just over 11 million faithful out of a total population of nearly 44 million.
The Church is losing priests despite the contribution of Africa
The number of inhabitants per priest worldwide has increased slightly by 236 people, reaching a total of 15,918 inhabitants per priest. For the past five years, surveys have shown that the total number of priests is declining, dropping to 406,996 in 2023, a decrease of 734 priests in one year. The decline continues in Europe, with 2,486 fewer priests (including religious and diocesan priests). Only Africa (+1,451) and Asia (+1,145) are recording increases.
But Europe still has a very good supply of priests compared to global statistics. On average, one European priest serves 1,846 faithful, while one African priest serves 5,094 Catholics.
Prayer for more priests
Give us truly holy priests, inflamed with the fire of your divine love, who seek nothing but your greater glory, and the salvation of souls.
And you, Mary, good Mother of priests, protect all priests from dangers to their holy vocation, and with the loving hand of a mother, lead back to the Good Shepherd those unfortunate priests who, unfaithful to their exalted vocation, have gone astray. Amen.
From here.
Concerns about seminarians, particularly in Asia
In detail, the outlook is negative regarding the evolution of the number of priests. Africa is the only continent where the number of seminarians is increasing (+383), but less sharply than in the previous year (+726). Africans account for nearly one in three seminarians.
The figures from Asia are more worrying for the Catholic Church, as the number of seminarians there has fallen by 1,331 to 30,436. The previous year, there were only 375 fewer seminarians.
In Europe, seminaries continue to empty (661 fewer in one year). The number of seminarians stands at 12,800.
Worldwide, the Church has 106,495 seminarians, which is 1,986 fewer candidates for ordination than in 2022.
Women religious and permanent deacons
The number of women religious worldwide continues to decline: there are now 589,423 (-9,805). The few increases are once again in Africa (+1,804) and Asia (+46), while they continue to decline in Europe (-7,338), the Americas (-4,066), and Oceania (-251).
It is interesting to note that the number of permanent deacons — that is, men, who may be married, ordained for a particular service in the Church — continues to increase worldwide, reaching 51,433 (+1,234). While this number has stagnated in Europe (15,678), it’s growing in America, where there are 34,322 permanent deacons, an increase of 1,257.
Finally, the figures published by the Fides agency provide an overview of the educational infrastructure managed by the Church around the world. It has nearly 75,000 kindergartens, 102,000 primary schools, 52,000 middle and high schools, and thousands (unspecified) of universities and higher education institutions under its management. In this way, the Church contributes to the education and training of nearly 72 million people.
