Bernardo di Luca

(ZENIT News / Rome, 20.07.2022).- A few days before the Pope’s Apostolic Journey to Canada, the Holy See’s Statistics Office published the statistics of the Catholic Church in the country the Holy Father will be visiting. 

Canada has a population of 38 million inhabitants, of which 16.8 million are Catholics. This means that 44.4 out of 100 Canadians are Catholics. There are 71 dioceses and 3,881 parishes in the country. Added to the parishes are 557 pastoral centers. In each center, some 3,799 are attended. 

Canada has 134 Bishops and 6,222 priests of which 4,117 are diocesan and 2,105 are Religious. The permanent deacons number 1,217 and men religious not priests number 1,032. There are almost 10,000 women religious, specifically 9,620, and 18,761 lay catechists. On average, the distribution of pastoral care of Catholics is one priest for every 2,709 people. 

Canada’s vocational health is reflected in the fact that there are 497 minor seminarians and 352 major seminarians in the whole country. In other words, there is less than one major seminarians (0.93) for every 100,000 inhabitants and 2.09 major seminarians for every 100,000 Catholics. 

The Catholic Church in Canada runs 2,179 nursery schools, 451 lower middle and secondary schools and 45 Universities. There are over half a million children in the nursery and primary schools (516,821), and more than a quarter of a million in the lower middle and secondary schools (2786,218). There are only 28,074 students in higher level schools.

Finally, the Church has 64 hospitals in Canada, 140 homes for the elderly and 54 orphanages. In addition, there are 72 family clinics run by the Church and 30 special education or re-education centers. 

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