The fastest growing religion in the world

Is now Islam?

Muslims outnumber Catholics worldwide, according to the latest count by the Vatican published in its daily newspaper on Saturday.

Muslims represent more than 19 per cent of the world’s 6.5 billion population, while Catholics represent 17.4 per cent, according to the Vatican’s latest yearbook based on 2006 figures, Sunday’s edition of the Osservatore Romano reported.

Christianity overall was more widespread, however, with Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Anglicans and other Protestants jointly accounting for a third of the world population, it said.

The figures are based partly on United Nations statistics, the 2,000-page yearbook’s director Vittorio Formenti told the newspaper.

The context behind the numbers.:

Formenti said the change was due to Muslim families having more children while Christian families were having fewer.

Abortion and contraception, two practices the Church opposes because they disrupt the natural reproductive process and the sanctity of life, are part of that tendency, to some degree.

Catholics were most numerous in Latin America, he said, and represent half the total population of North and South America.

Imagine if they followed the call by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict to evangelize, spreading the truths about the human person.