Overview of the Catholic Church
There are 1.36 billion Catholics in the world. Catholics comprise about half (50%) of Christians worldwide and 17% of the total global population.[1] There are 4.5 million Catholics in England and Wales.[2] 20% of churchgoing Christians in England and Wales are Catholics.[3]
The current Pope is Pope Francis, and his papacy began on 13th March 2013.
The Catholic Church claims that it can trace an unbroken line of popes back to St Peter, according to its interpretation of Matthew 16.19, that Christ built his church upon Peter.
The Catholic Church maintains that sometime after the recorded events of the book of Acts, the Apostle Peter became the first bishop of Rome, and that the Roman bishop was accepted by the early church as the central authority among all the churches. The Church teaches that God passed Peter’s apostolic authority onto those who later filled his seat as bishop of Rome (also known as the Pope). This teaching is called ‘apostolic succession’.
The word Catholic comes from the Greek and means universal. It’s been used since the second century and is found in the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds (These are known as the ecumenical or universal creeds. These creeds are a statement of the Catholic faith going right back to the third and fourth centuries).
The statement that we believe in ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church’ expresses a desire for unity across space and time and at the heart of the Catholic faith is a profound longing for a Church that is one and universal.
The global unity of the Catholic Church is central to its identity. It has a unity, but it is not uniform. Catholicism is diverse. The Catholic Church includes 23 autonomous churches, each with their own rites and canon law, from the Coptic Catholic Church in Egypt to the Syro-Malabar Church in India.
There’s also a rich variety of theological and spiritual traditions in its religious communities: Benedictine, Franciscan, Dominican, Carmelite, Cistercian and Ignatian, to name just a few.
[1] www.fides.org/en/stats
[2] From Contemporary Catholicism in England and Wales: A statistical report based on recent British Social Attitudes survey data. 2016. Stephen Bullivant
[3] Bible Society/YouGov polling, 2022. 3,485 adults in England and Wales