section_path: Organization/Membership
section_name: Membership
paragraph_text: Membership
  
  As of 2020 Catholicism is the second-largest religious body in the world after Sunni Islam. Catholics represent about half of all Christians. According to the World Christian Database, there are 1.272 billion Catholics globally, as of 2025. According to the Annuario Pontificio, church membership, defined as baptized Catholics, was 1.406 billion at the end of 2023, which was 17.4% of the world population: Under Pope Francis the church membership grew by almost 11%, with growth concentrated in Africa and loss in Europe.
  
  Brazil has the largest Catholic population in the world, followed by Mexico, the Philippines and the United States.
  
  Geographic distribution of Catholics worldwide continues to shift, with 20.0% in Africa, 47.8% in the Americas, 11.0% in Asia, 20.4% in Europe and 0.8% in Oceania.
  
  Catholic ministers include ordained clergy, lay ecclesial ministers, missionaries and catechists. Also as of the end of 2023, there were 463,859 ordained clergy, including 5,430 bishops, 406,996 priests (diocesan and religious) and 51,433 deacons (permanent). Non-ordained ministers, as at October 2024, include 2,883,049 catechists and 413,561 lay missionaries.
  
  Catholics who have committed to religious or consecrated life instead of marriage or single celibacy, as a state of life or relational vocation, include 49,414 male religious (as of 2022) and 589,423 women religious (as of 2023). These are not ordained, nor generally considered ministers unless also engaged in one of the lay minister categories above.