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[This presentation is filled with statistics and information in relation to the size and global reach of the Catholic church. Depending on the age of your audience you may want to omit some slides/information, or adapt the text to make more suitable for your audience]
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2. First of all let’s talk about the Catholic Church here in the UK
First of all let’s talk about the Catholic Church here in the UK. Catholics make up 8% of the UK population and Catholics work in every type of job – as teachers, nurses, police, soldiers, journalists, doctors, MPs, road sweepers or bankers. In total there are [click 1] 8,461,803 Catholics here in the UK. Or in other words, 4.2 million here in England and Wales, 850,000 in Scotland and 3.7 million here in Ireland (both Republic and Northern). [Baptised Catholics according to CIA factbook 2010] .
That is a huge number! It would take 10,636 Wembley stadiums to fit all of these Catholics in, or, if all the Catholics in the UK were to join hands they would circle the earth three times over (3.76 to be exact). Now that is a big hug!
[click 2] The Catholic Church has around 3,000 Catholic parishes in Great Britain to support this huge and diverse community which is made up of 4,400 active Diocesan priests and 811 who are retired, more than 5,000 members of female religious orders (nuns or sisters), and 1,069 religious priests (members of male religious orders).
The Catholic Church also makes a major contribution to the provision of education. [click 3] There are 2,300 Catholic schools in England and Wales where 10% of the school population are educated in Catholic schools. In Scotland it is a similar picture with 387 Catholic schools which educate 20% of the school population!

3. The Catholic Church here in the UK is also an outward looking church, dedicated to social justice and working to alleviating poverty. Here in the UK we have Caritas Social Action (CASN) which is an agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. This is the umbrella organisation for charities and organisations with a Catholic ethos which provide social care in England and Wales. Services include adoption, social work with children and families, child protection, school counseling, and family centres.
[click 2] Of course we also have CAFOD (Catholic agency for overseas development). We are one of the UK’s major relief and development agencies and the official development agency of the Catholic Bishops’ conference for England and Wales. We work in over 40 countries with poor and disadvantaged communities in the global South to overcome poverty and bring about sustainable development and well-being.
Do you know what the Scottish and Irish equivalent agencies are called? [click 3] Our Scottish equivalent is SCIAF (Scottish Catholic international aid fund), and our Irish sister agency is Trócaire (Irish for ‘compassion’).
Together we have been at the heart of numerous campaigns here in Great Britain and Ireland helping to raise awareness of overseas development issues, such as MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY, the IF campaign, climate change and many other Justice and Peace related causes. We are also closely linked to the Justice and Peace movement which has groups in many Catholic parishes across the UK who raise awareness and campaign on a host of issues at home and overseas.

4. Let us look at how big the Catholic community is here in the UK compared to the rest of the world. Even with 8million, we only rank as the 28th largest Catholic community in the world! Remember, that number takes Ireland into consideration, where over 87% of the population describe themselves as Catholic!
As you can see, the larger countries, including Brazil (136m), Mexico (101m) and the Philippines (75m) have the highest number of Catholics. USA, which has 72m ranks fourth, just above Italy which has over 90% of the population as Catholic (53m). Is there anything here that surprises you? Why do you think the UK has such a small Catholic community when compared to other countries like France and Italy which have roughly the same overall population? [Ans: Reformation]

5. Let us put it another way…
If this circle represents the amount of Catholics in the world – 1.2 billion….
[click one] then this dot shows you the size of the Catholic community here in the UK in relation to the total global population. Can you see it?
[click two] here you go – this is what 8million Catholics looks like in relation to billion!
Feeling insignificant yet?
So, as you can see, we are part of a global community that spans across all the continents on the earth and we have a single leader – the Pope! Now, perhaps we can see why it is so important that he is visiting us here in the UK...

6. Let us look at the global Catholic community in a little bit more detail. Let’s take 1.2 billion people and reduce them to a single congregation of 100 people. If this single congregation of 100 people represents the whole Catholic community then it would look like this...

7. 38 would be from Europe. This would include highly Catholic populated countries like Italy, Spain, Malta, as well as Vatican City which claims to have 921 inhabitants and is also 100% Catholic! This would roughly equate to 481 million Catholics – making two thirds (66%) of Europe Catholic! (Remember, in the UK only 16% are Catholic – so we are unique as a European country).

8. 28 would come from Central and South America
28 would come from Central and South America. As you saw earlier, Brazil and Mexico both contain the highest numbers of Catholics in the world. 351million Catholics live in this region, a region with a diverse mix of great wealth and poverty. Catholics make up 80% of the population of Central and South America.

9. 14 would come from North America, which includes USA, Canada, Cuba and Mexico. There are around 173 million Catholics in this region which make up 14% of the population.

10. Africa makes up 11 people in our global congregation
Africa makes up 11 people in our global congregation. It is also interesting to note that the Church in Africa is a growing church, whilst the Catholic church in Europe is shrinking. There are around 135 million Catholics living in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (36m), Nigeria (18m) and Uganda (11m).

11. Despite the Christian faith originally originating from this part of the world, only 10 from our global congregation will live in this area, even though this is the most densely populated area on the globe! 124m Catholics are in this area making up only 3% of the population!

12. And only one person from our global congregation will live in this region – roughly 7.7 million which makes up a quarter of all people who live there!

13. It is interesting to note that 73 members of our global congregation will come from a developing country. So, by and large, the Catholic community is not a Church of the rich, but rather a Church predominantly of the poor.

14. 10 people in our global congregation would not be able to read
10 people in our global congregation would not be able to read. Why is this so important? Well, there are clear links to poverty and lack of education. Families who are trying to cope financially will often take their children out of school – especially girls. Even when there are no school fees, many poor families struggle to buy essential things like pencils, paper, shoes and clothes.
[Statistic based on global literacy rates for each country weighted by number of Catholics of each country – these figures do not represent actual numbers]

15. Even when children from poor communities manage to attend school, they will certainly attend less regularly and do less well than others around the world. In rich countries, people have an average of ten years at school; in developing countries the average is around four. Poor transport and long distances to school make it even more difficult to attend. Without the chance of a full education, children are unable to get decent jobs, which keeps them in poverty. A terrible cycle!
The Catholic Church believes that education is really important for everyone. It says that “Lack of education is as serious as a lack of food” Pope Paul VI. This is why you will find many Catholic schools around the world. In fact, 132,904 to be exact! In Sub Saharan African the Catholic Church provides around 12 million school places, which helps to give millions of young people a chance to get out of poverty!

16. Clean drinking water is a basic human need, and around 10 people in our global congregation do not have access to it. Unfortunately, more than 1 in 6 people around the world still lack access to this precious resource.
[Statistic based on global rates of access to clean water for each country weighted by number of Catholics of each country – these figures do not represent actual numbers]

17. Each person on Earth requires at least 20 to 50 litres a day of clean, safe water for drinking, cooking, and simply cleaning themselves. Polluted water is not just dangerous, it is deadly. Around 1.8 million people die every year of diseases like cholera.
Here you can see a boy collecting water at a dam in Boraoi village, in Kenya.

18. 22 people in our global congregation do not have access to clean and appropriate sanitation. Every day 2.5 billion people worldwide will be doing ‘their business’ somewhere other than a toilet or latrine. Of course, not a pleasant thought... But have a think about what sort of problems this may cause.
[Statistic based on global rates of improved sanitation for each country weighted by number of Catholics of each country – these figures do not represent actual numbers]

19. Lack of safe toilets leads to untreated waste in the local environment, and can lead to many diseases. Unfortunately, it is usually young children who are the most affected by this problem. Diarrhoeal diseases are the second leading cause of death for children under the age of five.

20. 13 in our global congregation live on less than a dollar (around 65p) a day. What does this mean? To live on less than a dollar a day is an indicator for extreme poverty. We do not have extreme poverty here in the UK, so it may be hard to imagine or understand what life is like for people living on less than a dollar a day. It usually means lack of food, proper education, access to health, to proper housing and many other problems.
So what is the Catholic Church doing about this?

21. Remember at the beginning we talked about CAFOD having sister agencies in Scotland and Ireland (SCIAF and Trocaire). Well, we are also part of a much larger network of agencies. [click 2] Together we all form what is called the Caritas network. This global network of Catholic agencies works in over 165 countries, always without regard to race or religion.
And did you know, that the Catholic Church forms the second biggest development body in the world, second only to the United Nations! So agencies like CAFOD can reach the poorest across the globe by working alongside the Catholic Church, the Caritas network and locally based partners.
Together we are working together to live out the message Jesus gave us: to love our neighbour. This is at the heart of our faith. But who is my neighbour?

22. Pope Benedict said, “Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbour”.
So remember, our Catholic faith calls us all to love our neighbour, regardless of their race, creed or gender. And supporting CAFOD can help you to reach out to the poorest communities around the world to help those in the greatest need.

23. References: World Health Statistics 2010, CIA Factbook 2010, www.fides.org
Photos: Annie Bungeroth, Marcella Haddad, Domonic Nahr, CAFOD
Illustrations: CAFOD
cafod.org.uk