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| | ANNUARIUM SATISTICUM ECCLESIAE PUBLISHED FOR 2000 |
 | | In 2000, priests numbered 405,178, of these 265,781 were diocesan and 139,397 religious, with a decrease of 3.75% in 1978, the result of a decrease of 12.04% among the diocesan clergy and an increase of 1.26% among religious priests. |
 | | With regard to the number of Catholics per priest, the worldwide trend cannot but increase, because of the differential of demographic growth among the various zones: thus there has been an increase from 1,797 to 2,215 and 2,579 respectively for the years 1978, 1988 and 2000. |
 | | We therefore realize that this number calculated per million Catholics varies considerably from continent to continent and in the three years considered: in particular, in 2000 the number of candidates to the priesthood went from 242 per million Catholics in Asia, to 157 in Africa, 113 in Oceania, 96 in Europe, and 70 in America. |
| www.ewtn.com /library/CHISTORY/ANNU2000.HTM (1817 words) |
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