The yearbook tracks the Catholic population, both by a head count of the baptized in each country and as a percentage of the world's population.

The group called it “antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

John Paul liked scrambled eggs on bacon for breakfast. Benedict spent his free time playing the piano, reading, listening to classical music.

On the same day the bishops decided to establish a permanent committee on religious liberty, they agreed to extend the work of an ad hoc committee on immigration.

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory made the comments in the homily at an evening Mass said to commemorate a "Day of Prayer and Penance" for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

On this feast, we concentrate upon the Eucharistic elements themselves: the bread and the wine, which become the very presence of Christ in our midst.