Vatican City, Jul 8, 2008 / 08:10 am
Coinciding with Pope Benedict’s upcoming visit to Sydney, the Central Statistical Office of the Church has released statistics on the presence of the Catholic Church in Australia.
The information released shows that 27.56 % (5,704,000) of Australians are Catholic, making Catholicism the largest religion in the country.
The Census also shows that while the Catholic population grew by 125,260 between the 2001 and 2006, it declined slightly as a proportion of the country’s total population.
Serving Catholics are 1,390 parishes, 63 bishops, 3,125 priests, 7,950 religious, 40 lay members of secular institutes and 8,192 catechists. Minor seminarians number 83, and major seminarians 244.