Vatican City, Feb 20, 2010 / 20:53 pm
The number of Catholics worldwide rose by 19 million from 2007 to 2008, according to the Vatican almanac presented to the Pope on Saturday morning. The 2010 "Annuario Pontifico," or Pontifical Yearbook, which offers a variety of other statistics concerning religious and lay faithful in the Universal Church, also reports an increase in seminarians.
The 2010 Pontifical Yearbook was presented to the Holy Father on Saturday morning by Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and Archbishop Fernando Filoni. It was edited under the direction of Msgr. Vittorio Formenti, who is in charge of the Central Office of Church Statistics, and Professor Enrico Nenna.
The "Annuario Pontifico" details the administrative actions of Pope Benedict during the year 2009, including his creation of nine new episcopal sees and a prelature, a new diocese and the appointment of 169 new bishops.
Besides statistics from 2009, it also offers information valid up to 2008 on the 2,945 ecclesiastic districts in the Catholic Church all over the globe, including the statistic that there are now 1.166 billion baptized Catholics in the world, comprising 17.4 percent of all people.