The Catholic Church is organized in a worldwide hierarchy under the Pope, the Bishop of Rome (Holy See) based in Vatican City.
The Catholic Church is organized into local hierarchies within each nation, or group of smaller nations. National Conferences of bishops co-ordinate local policy within each nation, subject to the will of individual bishops who are supreme over their dioceses.
Alongside the Latin Church, there are 23 sui juris Ritual Churches, each led by either a Patriarch or a Major Archbishop, in full communion with the Holy See. Historically, these bodies separated from the Orthodox Communion or various ancient oriental churches, either to remain in or to return to full communion of the Catholic Church. The term sui juris literally means "by its own law"--these bodies retain the canonical and liturgical traditions of the bodies from which they came. Particular law typically provides for the synods of the larger sui juris ritual churches to elect their own bishops, including their patriarch or major archbishop, subject only to papal "assent" (formal recognition), which is very rarely withheld. The pope appoints bishops for the smaller sui juris ritual churches, which have too few bishops to form a synod.
Four Latin Church archbishops are also called Patriarchs. This is only titular but gives them precedence in papal processions. In the case of the Patriarch of Venice, he may wear the red vestments of a cardinal. Archbishops and bishops administer individual dioceses as successors of the twelve apostles. They are responsible for the ordination, appointment, and supervision of parish priests and the oversight of all church affairs within their diocese except the internal affairs of religious orders of pontifical right. If the responsibility associated with a certain diocese is large, a Bishop may be assisted by one or more Auxiliary Bishops, who are accorded a Titular see. A diocese may also have a Coadjutor bishop (coadjutor archbishop in the case of an archdiocese), who is effectively the "co-ruler" of the diocese and automatically succeeds to the office of bishop whenever the incumbent bishop leaves office. Coadjutor bishops historically were assigned titular sees until 1978, but that is no longer the case. When a diocese becomes vacant through transfer, resignation, retirement, or death of its bishop, its clergy elect a "diocesan administrator" unless the pope appoints an "apostolic administrator," to govern it until the new bishop takes office, but with limited powers in either case. The title of Primate refers to the bishop of the first diocese in a country or territory, which typically has grown into a metropolitan archdiocese, but carries no additional authority.
As of 5 September 2017, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction statistics is as follows; 1 Papal See, 9 Patriarchates, 4 Major Archdioceses, 554 Metropolitan Archdioceses, 77 Archdioceses, 2,225 Dioceses, 42 Prelatures, 11 Territorial Abbeys, 18 Apostolic Exarchates, 9 (Eastern Rite) Ordinariates, 36 Military Ordinariates, 3 Personal Ordinariates, 1 Personal prelature, 88 Apostolic Vicariates, 39 Apostolic Prefectures, 8 Apostolic Administrations, and 8 Missions 'sui juris'.
Video Catholic Church by country
Methodology
Most of the figures are taken from the CIA Factbook or PEW Research Center Surveys.
According to the CIA Factbook and the Pew Research Center, the five countries with the largest number of Catholics are, in decreasing order of Catholic population, Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, the United States, and Italy.
The country where the membership of the church is the largest percentage of the population is Vatican City at 100%, followed by East Timor at 97%.
According to the Census of the 2017 Annuario Pontificio (Pontifical Yearbook), the number of Catholics in the world was about 1.285 billion at the end of 2015.
Conflicting numbers can be found in 2013 research conducted by the Brazilian polling institute Datafolha. This report states that the percentage of the population in Brazil of Catholic religion, over the age of 16 years, is just 57%, in contrast to the 64.63% published by CIA and to the 68.6% of Pew Research Center. Also, the 2010 Mexican Census showed this percentage to be 83.9% - against a 91.89% number in the CIA Factbook.
Maps Catholic Church by country
By country
By clicking on the icons in the column titles you can re-order the table by column.
By dependent territory
By region
These percentages were calculated by using the above numbers. The first percentage, 4th column, is the percentage of population that is Catholic in a region (number in the region x 100 / total population of the region). The last column shows the national Catholic percentage compared to the total Catholic population of the world (number in the region x 100 / total RC population of the world).
Africa
Americas
Asia
Europe
Middle East
Oceania
See also
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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