The latest Vatican figures show that the Catholic Church in Africa continues to defy the trend of declining European churches by sustaining robust growth in both membership and vocations.
According to the Pontifical Yearbook 2025 and the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2023, published by the Vatican in March 2025, Africa recorded a net gain of 1,285 priests in 2023, an increase of 2.7 per cent despite global declines in priestly numbers elsewhere.
By year’s end, Africa’s Catholic population rose from 272 million in 2022 to 281 million in 2023, a surge of 3.31 per cent, bringing the continent’s share of global Catholics to one-fifth. The number of bishops also rose from 740 to 771, raising Africa’s proportion of the episcopate to 14.2 per cent of the global total.
In 2023, the continent counted 54,944 priests, both diocesan and religious, up from 53,659 a year earlier. Because attrition from death, retirement or laicisation tends to be low in Africa, the net increase is often viewed as a close proxy for new ordinations.
Further, Africa’s major seminarians increased by 1.1 per cent, to 34,924, constituting nearly a third of the global total despite Africa accounting for only 20 per cent of all Catholics. In contrast, seminarian numbers dropped across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Data on permanent deacons remain thin. The Yearbook does not break out African deacon numbers, but prior trends and regional reports suggest only minimal growth, perhaps a dozen or two per year at most. Even so, the diaconate remains marginal in most African regions, with a stronger presence in places such as southern Africa.
At the national level, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria emerge as powerhouses. The DRC houses nearly 55 million Catholics; Nigeria around 35 million. Though the Yearbook stops short of giving country-by-country ordination statistics, reports from dioceses indicate that Nigeria may contribute 300–400 new priests annually, some 20 to 25 per cent of Africa’s output.
This African centrism throws into sharp relief the broader contours of the Catholic world. While global priestly numbers fell by 734 in 2023, certain continents like Europe, the Americas and Oceania led the decline, while Africa and Asia bucked the trend.
The vocational crisis that grips much of the Church in the West is thus at least partially offset by ferment in Africa.
Historically, growth in African vocations is not new. Since the mid-20th century, Catholicism has steadily deepened its roots in the continent, producing indigenous clergy and bishops in increasing numbers.
The latest data indicate a decisive shift in the Church’s global balance. Africa, once a primary destination for missionary activity, now serves as one of the chief sources of new clergy for the universal Church.
(Photo by NICOLAS GUYONNET/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
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