Catholicism

Overview

Catholicism is the faith of the Catholic Church, the largest Christian body, with about 1.4 billion baptised members by its own count. It shares the ancient creeds with other Christians, but several things set it apart. Catholics are in communion with the pope, the bishop of Rome, whom they regard as the apostle Peter's successor. They hold that revelation comes through Scripture and Tradition together, interpreted with authority by the bishops united with the pope. Worship centres on seven sacraments, above all the Mass, and Catholics honour Mary and the saints as intercessors. Besides the large Latin Church, it includes Eastern Catholic churches with their own liturgies. Once centred on Europe, most Catholics now live in the Americas, Africa and Asia.^{[7, 9–13]}

History

Peter's see and the early church c. 30–1054 CE

Catholics hold that Jesus made the apostle Peter the rock of his church, and that Peter, martyred in Rome, handed his authority to the city's bishops. Historians describe slower growth: Rome was honoured as the church where Peter and Paul died, and its bishops claimed wider authority step by step, notably Leo I in the fifth century. As Roman rule collapsed in the West, popes such as Gregory the Great (590–604) became leading figures. The Latin West and Greek East drifted apart; mutual excommunications in 1054 became the traditional date of their split.^[14–17]

Medieval Christendom 1050–1500

Gregory VII (1073–85) led a reform against simony and lay control of church offices, and Innocent III (1198–1216) claimed authority over kings. The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 required yearly confession and communion and named the change in the Mass transubstantiation. Franciscan and Dominican friars preached in the towns, while Thomas Aquinas and others built theology in the universities. The same church preached crusades and from the 1230s sent papal inquisitors against heresy. The popes' stay at Avignon (1309–77) and a schism of rival popes (1378–1417) damaged their prestige.^[18–22]

Reformation and Catholic renewal 1517–1650

Luther's protest of 1517 began the Reformation, and much of northern Europe left Rome's communion. Catholic renewal was already under way: the Jesuits, founded by Ignatius of Loyola, won papal approval in 1540. The Council of Trent (1545–63) fixed the canon of scripture, affirmed seven sacraments and justification by faith and works together, and ordered seminaries for priests. Rome also created a Roman Inquisition (1542) and an Index of forbidden books (1559); the Inquisition condemned Galileo in 1633. The Latin missal issued in 1570 to carry out Trent's reforms stayed in obligatory use for four centuries.^[23–27]

Empire and mission 1492–1800

Catholicism spread with the Spanish and Portuguese empires, whose kings received from popes wide control over the church in their colonies. Friars and Jesuits baptised millions in the Americas, often alongside conquest, forced labour and the destruction of Indigenous religion; some, like the Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas, denounced the abuses. In Asia, Francis Xavier preached in India and Japan, and Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci adapted to Chinese culture until Rome banned the Chinese rites in the eighteenth century. The Spanish Inquisition, authorised by the pope in 1478 but run by the crown, pursued converts from Judaism and Islam until 1834.^[28–31]

From revolution to Vatican II 1789–1965

The French Revolution and later liberal states stripped the Church of land and privilege, and in 1870 Italy seized Rome, ending the Papal States. That year the First Vatican Council, under Pius IX, defined papal infallibility. Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) founded modern Catholic social teaching, and the Lateran Treaty of 1929 created Vatican City. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65), called by John XXIII, allowed Mass in local languages, embraced ecumenism and religious freedom, and in Nostra aetate rejected blaming the Jews collectively for Jesus' death.^[32–35]

A world church 1965–today

John Paul II (1978–2005), the first non-Italian pope in over four centuries, travelled widely and backed Poland's Solidarity movement. From the 1980s, and above all after The Boston Globe's reporting in 2002, inquiries in many countries exposed sexual abuse of children by clergy and its cover-up by bishops; a 2004 US study counted 4,392 accused priests since 1950, and a French commission in 2021 estimated 216,000 victims of clergy, a figure whose survey method some scholars disputed. Francis (2013–25), the first pope from the Americas, apologised to survivors and tightened church law against abuse and its cover-up. Leo XIV, born in Chicago, succeeded him in 2025. By Church figures, Africa now has more Catholics than Europe.^{[2, 36–40]}

Key moments

1. c. 530 CEBenedict writes his Rule · Monte Cassino, Italy
2. 800 CECharlemagne crowned emperor · St Peter's Basilica, Rome
3. c. 863 CECyril and Methodius among the Slavs · Great Moravia (Czechia and Slovakia)
4. 1054 CEThe Great Schism · Constantinople and Rome
5. 1095 CEThe First Crusade · Clermont to Jerusalem
6. 1204 CECrusaders sack Constantinople · Constantinople
7. c. 1209 CEFrancis of Assisi and the friars · Assisi and Rome
8. 1215 CEThe Fourth Lateran Council · Lateran Palace, Rome
9. 1348 CEThe Black Death: penance and pogroms · Europe
10. c. 1455 CEThe Gutenberg Bible · Mainz, Germany
11. 1491 CEKongo becomes a Christian kingdom · Mbanza Kongo (São Salvador), Angola
12. 1531 CEOur Lady of Guadalupe · Tepeyac, Mexico City
13. 1545 CEThe Council of Trent · Trent, then in the Holy Roman Empire (now Trento, Italy)
14. 1555 CEThe Peace of Augsburg · Augsburg
15. 1562 CELanda burns the Maya books · Maní, Yucatán, Mexico
16. 1614 CEJapan bans Christianity; the hidden Christians · Nagasaki region, Japan
17. 1633 CEThe trial of Galileo · Rome
18. 1648 CEPeace of Westphalia · Münster and Osnabrück
19. 1680 CEThe Pueblo Revolt · New Mexico
20. 1706 CEThe burning of the prophet Kimpa Vita · Kingdom of Kongo (northern Angola)
21. 1784 CEKorea's lay-founded church · Seoul, Korea
22. 1790 CEThe Revolution and the Church · France
23. 1870 CEVatican I defines papal infallibility · St Peter's Basilica, Rome
24. 1962 CESecond Vatican Council · Rome
25. 1968 CEMedellín and liberation theology · Medellín, Colombia
26. 1986 CEPraying together at Assisi · Assisi, Italy
27. 2019 CEDocument on Human Fraternity · Abu Dhabi

Beliefs

Scripture and Tradition

Catholics believe God's revelation reaches them through the Bible and through the living Tradition handed on from the apostles. Interpreting both with authority falls to the Magisterium, the bishops teaching in union with the pope. The Catholic Old Testament includes seven books, among them Tobit, Judith and 1–2 Maccabees, that most Protestants set apart as the Apocrypha.^{[11, 41]}

The papacy

the office of the pope

Catholics regard the pope as Peter's successor and the visible head of the whole Church, with full authority over it. Since 1870 they have held that when he solemnly defines a doctrine of faith or morals ex cathedra, 'from the chair', for the whole Church, he is kept from error. This does not make popes sinless, and most papal teaching is not of this solemn kind.^[42–43]

Sacraments · sacramenta

holy signs

Catholics count seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance or reconciliation, anointing of the sick, holy orders and marriage. They teach that Christ instituted each one and that each is an outward sign that truly gives the grace it signifies. Baptism, confirmation and ordination can be received only once in a lifetime.^{[5, 44]}

Real Presence

Catholics believe that at Mass the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ in their substance while keeping their outward appearance. The Church calls this transubstantiation, a term used at the Fourth Lateran Council and confirmed at Trent. Consecrated hosts are kept in the tabernacle and adored outside Mass.^{[19, 45]}

Mary and the saints

Catholics honour Mary as Mother of God and hold two dogmas defined by popes: her Immaculate Conception, free from original sin (1854), and her Assumption body and soul into heaven (1950). Saints, whose holiness the Church confirms by canonisation, are asked to pray for the living, a veneration the Church distinguishes from the worship owed to God alone.^[46–47]

Purgatory · purgatorium

Catholics believe that many who die in God's grace but are not yet fully purified pass through purgatory, a temporary cleansing before heaven. The living can help them by prayer, by having Masses offered and by gaining indulgences, which is why Catholics pray for the dead, above all on All Souls' Day, 2 November.^[48]

Practice

The Mass · Missa

Catholics are obliged to attend Mass every Sunday and on certain holy days. The Mass has two main parts: the Liturgy of the Word, with Bible readings and a homily, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, when the priest consecrates bread and wine and the people receive communion. It is celebrated every day of the year except Good Friday.^[49]

Sacraments through life

Most Catholics are baptised as infants. Latin Catholic children usually make their first confession and first communion around the age of seven and are confirmed later; Eastern Catholics give baptism, confirmation and communion together to infants. Church law requires confession of serious sins at least once a year. Marriage, ordination and the anointing of the seriously ill mark later stages.^{[19, 50]}

Fasting and devotions

Latin Catholics fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstain from meat on Fridays, a rule many bishops' conferences limit to Lent. Outside the liturgy they pray the rosary, a cycle of Our Fathers and Hail Marys spent meditating on the lives of Jesus and Mary, walk the Stations of the Cross and make pilgrimages to shrines.^[51–52]

Religious life

Men and women in religious orders take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Monks follow the Rule of Benedict; Franciscan and Dominican friars preach and serve the poor; Jesuits run schools and missions; and many congregations of sisters staff hospitals and schools. Enclosed nuns, such as the Carmelites reformed by Teresa of Ávila, devote their lives to prayer.^[53–54]

Holy days

Easter and Holy Week

Sunday after the first full moon of spring (March or April)

The centre of the Catholic year. The three days from Holy Thursday evening through Good Friday and the Easter Vigil recall the Last Supper, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Adults are often baptised at the Vigil.^[55]

Christmas

25 December

The feast of Jesus' birth, prepared for by the four Sundays of Advent. Catholic tradition gives Christmas several Masses, beginning at midnight, and its season runs into January, taking in the Epiphany.^[56]

Ash Wednesday

46 days before Easter (February or March)

The first day of Lent, the season of penance before Easter. Priests mark worshippers' foreheads with ashes as a sign of mortality and repentance, and Latin Catholics fast that day.^{[51, 57]}

Assumption of Mary

15 August

Celebrates the belief that Mary was taken body and soul into heaven, which Pius XII defined as dogma in 1950. It is one of the Church's holy days of obligation, on which Catholics are expected to attend Mass.^{[46, 58]}

People

Peter

saint · died c. 64 CE

A fisherman and leader of Jesus' twelve apostles. Catholics hold that Jesus named him the rock on which the Church is built and count him as the first pope. Early writers place his martyrdom in Rome under Nero, though how he came to lead the church there is debated.^{[14, 59]}

Mary

saint · 1st century BCE–1st century CE

The mother of Jesus, honoured by Catholics as Mother of God and first among the saints. Devotion to her runs through Catholic prayer, from the Hail Mary and the rosary to feasts, shrines and reported apparitions such as those at Guadalupe and Lourdes.^{[46, 60]}

Francis of Assisi

saint · c. 1182–1226

A cloth merchant's son who gave up his wealth to live in poverty and preach. He founded the Friars Minor, whose rule the pope approved in 1223, and was made a saint two years after his death. Pope Francis took his name.^[61]

Thomas Aquinas

scholar · 1225–1274

An Italian Dominican friar who joined Aristotle's philosophy to Christian theology, above all in his Summa theologiae, which he left almost finished at his death. Canonised in 1323, he was later named a Doctor of the Church and the patron of Catholic schools.^[62]

Teresa of Ávila

saint · 1515–1582

A Spanish Carmelite nun who founded stricter, reformed convents and wrote classics of mystical prayer, among them The Interior Castle. In 1970 she and Catherine of Siena became the first women declared Doctors of the Church.^[63]

John Paul II · Karol Wojtyła

saint · 1920–2005

A Polish archbishop of Kraków elected pope in 1978. In a reign of over 26 years he made more than a hundred foreign journeys, supported the movement that ended communist rule in Poland, and issued the Catechism. He was canonised in 2014.^{[36, 64]}

Scripture

The Bible

c. 1000 BCE–c. 100 CE; canon fixed 1546

The Catholic Bible has 46 Old Testament books, including the deuterocanonical ones, and 27 in the New Testament. For a thousand years the Western church read it in Jerome's Latin Vulgate, which Trent declared authentic; Catholics now use approved translations in their own languages.^{[4, 65]}

Confessions

c. 400

Augustine of Hippo (354–430), the North African bishop whose ideas on grace and sin shaped Western theology, wrote this book in his forties. It reflects on his early life, his years of searching and his conversion, and is addressed throughout to God as prayer and praise.^[66]

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1992

A summary of Catholic teaching issued by John Paul II after the Second Vatican Council, in four parts: the creed, the sacraments, moral life and prayer. It serves as the reference for national catechisms and teachers.^[67]

Places

St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

ITA · UNESCO World Heritage, 1984

Begun in 1506 under Julius II and largely finished by 1615, over the shrine Catholics revere as Peter's tomb; Bramante, Michelangelo, who designed the dome, and Bernini, who added the piazza decades later, all shaped it. It hosts the great papal liturgies and stands within Vatican City, a World Heritage Site.^[68]

Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi

ITA · UNESCO World Heritage, 2000

Begun after Francis was made a saint in 1228, this pair of churches, one built above the other, holds his tomb and frescoes by Cimabue, Giotto, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti. It is part of the Assisi World Heritage Site.^[69]

Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes

FRA

In 1858 a fourteen-year-old, Bernadette Soubirous, reported eighteen visions of Mary at a grotto here. The Church accepted them, and Lourdes grew into one of the great pilgrimage centres of Europe, visited by millions, many of them sick people hoping for healing.^[70]

Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

MEX

At Tepeyac, then outside Mexico City, where tradition says Mary appeared in December 1531 to Juan Diego, an Indigenous convert canonised in 2002. Her image on his cloak is venerated in a basilica that is among the most famous shrines of Latin America.^[71]

Art & objects

Public-domain objects from museum collections. Select one to see it at the museum.

Virgin of the Immaculate ConceptionItaly, 1710–20The Institution of the RosaryItaly, c. 1590Saint Francis before the Pope (The Approval of the Franciscan Rule)Italy, 1390–1400The Adoration of the EucharistFlanders, c. 1626Reliquary Monstrance in the form of a ChurchBrunswick, c. 1484The Assumption of the VirginGreece, 1577–79Reliquary Monstrance with a Tooth of Saint John the BaptistGermany, 1433; container: 900/1200Portrait of Pope Sixtus IV della RovereSpain, c. 1476–82Monstrance with the "Paten of Saint Bernward"paten: Germany, Lower Saxony, Hildesheim; monstrance: Germany, Lower Saxony, Brunswick, Gothic period, paten: 12th century; monstrance: 14th century, c. 1180–1190Book-Shaped ReliquaryIvory: Ottonian, Lorrain; Frame: Germany, Lower Saxony, Brunswick, Gothic period, 14th century, c. 1000Portrait of Pope Innocent X PamphiliItaly, designed 1647–48; cast 1650–1700Saint Ignatius Loyola with Saints and Martyrs of the Jesuit Ordersecond half of the 17th centuryPope Benedict XV (1854–1922)modeled 1915, cast probably before 1950RosaryGerman, ca. 1500–1525

Numbers

Baptised Catholics

c. 1.3–1.4 billion (2024)^[9]

1.422 billion is the Church's own count of baptised members for 2024. Independent estimates run lower: Britannica gives some 1.3 billion; Pew counted 1.1 billion in 2010.

Where Catholics live

Americas 48%, Africa 20%, Europe 20%, Asia 11% (2024)^{[40, 72]}

Church statistics. In 1910 about two-thirds of Catholics lived in Europe (Pew Research Center).

Largest Catholic population

Brazil^[73]

Brazil has the most Catholics of any country, though their share of its people has fallen, to about 57% in the 2022 census.

National censuses

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing 2021, 'Religious affiliation in Australia' (Table 4), CC BY 4.0. Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0342-01 Religion by visible minority and generation status: Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts, released 2022-10-26. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product. Source: Stats NZ, 2018 Census, licensed by Stats NZ for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Common misconceptions

Glossary

Magisterium

The teaching authority of the Church, exercised by the bishops together with the pope as their head, which Catholics believe Christ entrusted to the apostles and their successors.^[11]

Holy See

The pope's office as the central government of the Catholic Church, recognised in international law. It is distinct from Vatican City, the small state that gives it territorial independence.^[75]

Roman Curia

The offices through which the pope governs the worldwide Church. Since a 2022 reform they are all called dicasteries, such as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.^[76]

Conclave

The locked meeting in the Sistine Chapel at which cardinals under the age of 80 elect a pope by a two-thirds majority; white smoke announces the result.^[77]

Encyclical

A formal letter from the pope to the bishops and faithful, used for major teaching, such as Rerum novarum (1891) or Laudato si' (2015).^[78]

Canonisation

The pope's declaration that a dead person is a saint in heaven, after an inquiry into their life and, normally, miracles attributed to their prayers; beatification is the stage before it.^[79]

Indulgence

A remission of the temporal punishment still due for sins already forgiven, granted by the Church for prayers or good works. Abuses in preaching them, including payments, provoked Luther's protest of 1517.^[80]

Canon law

The Church's own legal system. The Latin Church follows the Code of Canon Law of 1983; the Eastern Catholic churches share a code issued in 1990.^[81]