Some World Religious Statistics (From Time, January 29,2001, p. 12)

# There are 1.45 billion baptized Catholics around the world. 49% of them live in North and South America

# There were 164 new bishops nominated by the Pope last year, bringing the world total to 4,439

# The number of Catholic priests now number 404,626, 418 more than the previous year. There are also 814,779 women religious and 57,813 men religious who are not priests

# The number of professed Christians around the world is now 1.9 billion. Christianity has a majority of the population in two-thirds of the world’s 238 countries

# There are now 33,820 Christian denominations or similar distinct organizations. Churches independent of the main branches of Christianity have 386 adherents

# Muslims number 1.2 billion, 19.6% of the total. In 1900 Muslims numbered 200 million, or 12.3% of the total

# There are 811 million Hindus in the world. There are 360 million Buddhists, 23 million Sikhs and 14 million Jews

# 768 million are ‘non-religious’, up from 3 million in 1900.

Sources: The Vatican Yearbook 2000 (1,2,3); The World Christian Encyclopedia (4-8).