Muslims Outnumber World's Catholics

The Vatican's newspaper reported that for the first time in history, there are more Muslims in the world than Roman Catholics. All groups of Christians still outnumber Muslims, according to 2007 estimates from the CIA World Factbook.

Christians: 33 percent

Muslims: 21 percent

Hindus: 13 percent

Buddhists: 6 percent

Sikhs: .4 percent

Jews: .2 percent

Baha'is .1 percent

And the rest:Other Religions 12percent/Non-Religious:12 percent/Atheists 2 percent Sources AP,cia.gov

By ALESSANDRA RIZZO,AP
Posted: 2008-03-31 00:09:06
Filed Under: World News

VATICAN CITY (March 30) - Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.

"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook.

He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims were at 19.2 percent.

"It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer," the monsignor said.

Formenti said that the data refer to 2006. The figures on Muslims were put together by Muslim countries and then provided to the United Nations, he said, adding that the Vatican could only vouch for its own data.

When considering all Christians and not just Catholics, Christians make up 33 percent of the world population, Formenti said.

Spokesmen for the Vatican and the United Nations did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Sunday.

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