Pastoral Research

Statistics

Catholic Population

How many Catholics are there in Australia?

According to the 2021 Australian Census, the Catholic population was 5,075,907 people, representing about 19.9% of the overall population of Australia.

Between 2016 and 2021, the number of Catholics decreased, and the proportion of Catholics in the population also decreased. In 2016, the Catholic population was 5,291,817 or 22.6% of the total Australian population.

Dioceses and Parishes

How many dioceses are there in Australia?

A diocese is a section of the Church entrusted to the leadership of a bishop. There are 35 dioceses in Australia. There are 28 dioceses based on geographical boundaries, five dioceses of Eastern Catholic Churches, the Military Ordinariate of Australia, where the bishop’s responsibility is the pastoral care of Catholic members of the Australian Defence Forces and their families, and the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross.

How many parishes are there?

The 2022-23 Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia lists 1392, including 97 belonging to Eastern Catholic Churches.

What are Eastern Catholic Churches?

Almost all of Australia’s 5.1 million Catholics belong to what is called the Latin Rite or the Western Catholic Church, but there are also a small but growing number of Catholics who belong to Eastern Catholic Churches, often called Eastern Rites. The five largest Eastern Catholic Churches in Australia are the Maronite, Melkite, Ukrainian, Chaldean and Syro-Malabar, each of which has been established as a diocese (or eparchy), with a bishop (or eparch) who is a member of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. As well as these five Eastern Catholic Churches, there are also four others that have clergy resident in Australia. These are the Armenian, Syrian, Coptic and Russian Catholic Churches. There are probably Catholics belonging to other Eastern Rites as well, but they do not gather as distinct, organised Churches (Dixon 2005, p. 49).

Priests

How many priests are there in Australia?

The number of priests in Australia in 2021 was 2,900, made up of 1,834 diocesan and 1,066 priests belonging to religious orders. (Diocesan priests belong to a locality called a diocese and are responsible to the bishop of the diocese or archdiocese, while religious order priests belong to groups such as the Jesuits, Franciscans or Salesians, and are responsible to the leaders of their order. There are about 40 orders of priests in Australia.)

How does this number compare with the past?

The number of priests in Australia peaked at 3,895 in 1971, and was above 3,800 from 1968 till the early 1980s. There has been a decline of around 25% since 1971.

How many men are training to be priests?

In 2021, according to the Official Catholic Directory, there were 236 men training to be priests in Australia’s diocesan seminaries and 68 training to be religious order priests. In contrast, there were 546 in 1969. By 1991, that figure had dropped to 172, and then rose again in interceding years since, although fluctuates somewhat from year to year.

Religious Sisters and Brothers

How many religious sisters and brothers are there in Australia?

The 2022-23 Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia records that there are 3,501 religious sisters and 608 religious brothers in Australia. In 2007, there were about 5,700 religious sisters and 1,020 religious brothers in Australia.