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Vatican: Islam Surpasses Roman Catholicism As World's Largest Religion
Mar 31, 2008 | 11:07 AM
Category: Faith
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By ALESSANDRA RIZZO
Associated Press Writer

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- 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.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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Here are some more stats on world religions ...

Wikipedia

Adherents

ReligiousTolerance.org

2 Comments |  Add a Comment

Member Comments Total Comments: 2
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rightwinger read my blog
Mar 31, 2008 | 9:50 PM

Thats ironic, they both.... never mind

no comment
frenchmills read my blog view my photos
Apr 3, 2008 | 4:59 PM

you forgot that non-religious is the third largest group, per Adherents, which I have referred to in the past and have found quite interesting
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JillSTL

I am a Web Producer at KTVI Fox 2 News, AKA the Web Chick. I am a scuba diver (if you could not tell) and believe it or not, a certified underwater pumpkin carver (really, I have a card!). I always keep a candy jar on my desk (right now it has a variety of hard candies, what's your favorite?) along with a box of crayons, for those times when you just want to color ...

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