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Wednesday, 22 July 2008
The Global Roman Catholic and Muslim Populations
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For centuries the Roman Catholic religion has been the world’s largest, with the Muslim religion coming a close second. Even today, Roman Catholics still comprise almost one fifth of the world’s population.i But this year the head of the Vatican’s statistics office has said that, for the very first time, the world’s Muslim population is greater than the number of Roman Catholics. At the end of 2006, Muslims represented 19.2% of the world’s population, and Roman Catholics represented 17.4%. “For the first time in history, we’re no longer at the top. The Muslims have surpassed us,” he said. ii