Top 10 Most Religious Catholic Countries with Highest Church Attendance in the World

If you have ever wondered what are the top 10 most religious Catholic countries with highest church attendance in the world.

There are a little more than 1 billion Catholics around the world, and they are living in pretty much every country you can think of. I spent a few of my early years growing up in Catholic school and attending mass. From what I remember, I enjoyed my time spent there — especially the plaid jumpers that were part of the uniform. These days, I usually only go to mass for Christmas Eve with family, but not much has changed since the days of mass as a child, other than the fact that I actually listen and pay attention to what’s going on now. In recent years, it seems the Catholic community has gained a reputation for only going to church on holidays like Easter and Christmas. While this trend may not be true in many countries around the world, it’s definitely true for the United States. If you take a look at Pew research church attendance, the number of Catholics in the U.S. has dropped by around three million people in the past decade. Polls for Gallup church attendance show similar statistics across the board for religions in America. Church attendance statistics 2016 suggest around 36% of the population regularly attends church. This relatively small percentage of churchgoers are filling up the pews at some of the Biggest Churches in America.

For more information on church attendance, check out our articles on the Largest Churches in the World by Membership and the Biggest Churches in Africa.

 

Roman Catholicism is around 2,000 years old, and today, the seat of the Catholic Church is located in Vatican City in Rome, Italy. Vatican City is the smallest state in the world and is home to St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pope, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and a number of museums. It is also the home of the Holy Stairs where Jesus Christ is said to have walked the day he was sentenced to death. If you are visiting Rome, setting aside a day to visit Vatican City as there’s really nothing else like it. Obviously, Catholicism is the predominant religion in Italy and a number of European countries, however that is not the case for other European countries. While England has always been a Protestant country, the church attendance statistics U.K. don’t differ much from that of neighboring Catholic countries, as numbers are showing a decline in attendance.

While we couldn’t track down accurate church attendance statistics 2017 as the final numbers are not yet in for the year, we were able to track down information on church attendance statistics by country for the past few years. Our main sources for the article were Georgetown University and the Pew Research Center. There is a wealth of information regarding church statistics from all over the world. For more on churches and religion, check out our list of biggest countries in Asia or our list of biggest churches in the world. However, not every country has a high population of people who belong to popular religious groups as is evident with our list of Atheist or least religious countries in the world. For our list, we took a look at the percentage of the Catholic population in each country, who show up to mass on a regular basis. The higher the percentage of attendance, the higher it is on our list.

Let’s get started on our list of the top 10 most religious Catholic countries with highest church attendance in the world.

10. Mexico

Attendance: 50.1%

According to Pew, Mexico is home to the second largest Catholic population in the globe, where 81% of the people practice Catholicism. While a strong majority of the country practices, only about half that amount actually attend mass on a regular basis. Even more interestingly, Mexico’s Catholics tend to have opposing views on major topics like same-sex marriage and contraception, which are big topics of discussion for the church.

9. Columbia

Attendance: 53.3%

Catholicism is the main religion in Columbia, and it is estimated that 70% of the people practice, even though half the amount of Catholics say they attend mass regularly. Catholicism was originally introduced to the country in the 1500s by Spain.

8. Poland

Attendance: 54.9%

The Poles have an interesting history of fighting to keep their religious beliefs alive in the country. Of the Polish people practicing Christianity, around 92% of them identify with the Roman Catholic church. In the 1980s, Poland had some of the largest mass attendance numbers in the world.

7. Lebanon

Attendance: 56.7%

One country that may come as a surprise on this list to some, is Lebanon. Lebanon has a little over 1 million Catholics living in the country, and the largest percentage of Christians in all the Middle Eastern countries. In 1943, a national pact was created that states the country’s president must be Christian, the prime minister a Sunnite Muslim, and the speaker of the National Assembly must be a Shiite Muslim.

6. South Korea

Attendance: 59.0%

Around 10% (or 5 million) South Koreans practice Catholicism, which is vastly different from its neighbor, North Korea, where Christianity is suppressed. Typically, those who have a higher social status in South Korea tend to also be Catholic.

5. Philippines

Attendance: 60.9%

We’re about halfway through our list of the top 10 most religious Catholic countries with highest church attendance in the world and now we have the Philippines. The Philippines is the only Christian nation in Asia and 86% of their population is Roman Catholic. These days, more than half the Catholic population still attends mass regularly.

4. Rwanda

Attendance: 74.2%

Rwanda has had a tough past in recent decades, considering the 1994 genocide. Recently, the Catholic church publicly apologized for its role in the killings. Even though Catholicism has only been in the country since around 1900, its followers are strong. There are even said to have been apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a small Rwandan village called Kibeho in 1980.

3. Zimbabwe

Attendance: 84.5%

There are about 1 million Catholics in eight dioceses in the country of Zimbabwe, our number three on the list of most religious Catholic countries with highest church attendance in the world. The religion was brought by missionaries to the country in the late 1800s and has been strong ever since. As you can see, more than three quarters of the Catholic population attends mass on a regular basis.

2. Ghana

Attendance: 85.4%

Again, we find another African country of devout Catholics on our list. About three million (or thirteen percent) of people in Ghana are Catholic. They only slightly surpassed Zimbabwe when it comes to attendance, but definitely surpassed them in membership.

1. Nigeria 

Attendance: 92.2%

We’ve come to the end of our list, with Nigeria, which takes home first place of the most religious Catholic countries with highest church attendance in the world. Nearly 100% of Catholics in the country attend mass on a regular basis. In recent years, the country has seen massive growth in Catholicism, which is quite the opposite of what the rest of the world is seeing.