The number of Korean Catholics increased by 0.2 percent compared to the previous year, according to recent data released by the Catholic bishops of the country.
The “Statistics of the Korean Catholic Church 2022” noted that 11.3 percent of the country’s population are Catholics.
The report, which was released by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea in the past weeks, also shows that the average number of Sunday worshipers in 2022 totaled 699,681, about 11.8 percent of the population of the faithful. It was an increase of three percent compared to 2021 figures.
The total number of newly baptized Catholics in in 2022 was 41,384, an increase of 13.3 percent compared to 2021 when there were 36,540 baptisms.
The number of Catholic priests has increased slightly, while the number of religious men and women has decreased. The country has two cardinals, 40 bishops, and 5,661 priests. In 2022, 96 priests were ordained.
The number of priests who are members of religious communities has increased by 16 to 826 and the number of priests from communities of apostolic life is 149.
