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Dear WilliamWallance1999,

"Evidence please?"

Certainly. I'm using www.catholic-hierarchy.org as a source. You can look there for more exhaustive statistics, but here's a sampler. Sorry my formatting isn't better.

Latin America

Country Catholics Priests Catholics/Priests

Brazil 145.24 mill 16,733 ~8,600/1
Mexico 125.58 mill 14,578 ~8,600/1
Columbia 38.225 mill 7,773 ~4,900/1
Venezuela 25.487 mill 2,305 ~11,000/1
Argentina 34.208 mill 5,802 ~5,900/1
Peru 27.561 million 2,835 ~9,700/1
Ecuador 12.165 mill 1,891 ~6,400/1

Africa is generally better:

Congo 28.245 mill 4,002 ~7,000/1
Nigeria 19.37 mill 4,144 ~4,700/1
Uganda 10.787 mill 1,555 ~6,900/1
Angola 10.327 mill 600 ~17,000/1
Tanzania 10 million 2,143 ~4,700/1
Madagascar 4.6 mill 1,134 ~4,000/1
Burundi 4.431 mill 399 ~11,100/1
Cameroon 4.356 mill 1,395 ~3,100/1
South Africa 3.1 mill 1091 ~2,800/1

And, of course, you can't forget this one - it's one of the largest:

Phillipines 68.721 mill 6620 ~10,400/1

Some Third World countries do well, but they have relatively small Catholic populations:

India 16.694 mill 19,541 ~850/1
Indonesia 6.346 mill 3,021 ~2,100/1
Vietnam 5.539 mill 2,613 ~2,100/1

Now, US and Europe:

US 64.199 million 46,130 ~1,400/1
Belgium 7.839 mill 7,441 ~1,000/1
Britain 4.732 mill 5,708 ~800/1
France 44.957 mill 22,573 ~2,000/1
Germany 26.488 mill 18,614 ~1,400/1
Italy 57.630 mill 51,548 ~1,100/1
Spain 34.384 mill 27,982 ~1,200/1
Poland 35.108 mill 25,462 ~1,400/1

Overall, there are about 1.1 billion Catholics and about 500,000 priests, worldwide, yielding an overall worldwide ratio of about ~2,200/1.

There! A very incomplete list, but if you want to see just how representative is my sample, you're welcome to check for yourself at www.catholic-hierarchy.org.

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