Catholic News: While the overall Catholic poulation grew in 2003, there was a slight but notable drop in the percentage of Catholic population in South America, due to the growing presence of Protestant evangelists.
Catholic World News reports that the world's Catholic population grew by 9.47 million in 2003, to reach a total of 1.07 billion. The figures were contained in a report released by the Vatican on Sunday, which was observed as World Mission Sunday.
The number of Catholics rose fastest in the Americas, where the Church added 6.2 million members. (The Vatican treats North and South America as a single continent for statistical purposes; the vast bulk of that growth came in South America.) Among the world's continents, only Europe saw a loss (of 674,000) in Catholic population.
