The Catholic Church (also known as the Roman Catholic Church) is a society of faithful which holds itself to be the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ. It is the largest organised religious body in the world and has over a billion members presently living. The Church maintains that its sacred mission is the salvation of souls by means of spreading amongst all humanity the Evangelium of Jesus Christ and administering the seven sacraments to its body of believers—who subsist in the Catholic faith—under the authority of the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church and the bishops in communion with him.[1]
From roughly the 3rd century, when Constantine the Great made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire until around the 18th century when freemasonry came to dominate society, the Catholic Church played a preeminent role in European life. It continues to do so to a significant extent, although it is internally fractured due to disputes on the nature of modernity in general and how the Church should respond to liberalism and Jewish influenced "pluralism". Along the way, there have been significant break-aways; the Great Schism with the Orthodox Church in the 11th century and the advent of Protestantism in the 16th century.
The Holy See; the preeminent episcopal see and central government of the Church; was for over a millenium in the Pontifical States at Rome. Today however, its base is the Vatican City, a small sovereign state within Italy's capital city Rome. The Basilica of St. John Lateran is the mother church, although St. Peter's Basilica is a place of unique significance for Catholics; St. Peter the Apostle, who the Church holds Christ named as His Church's first Pope, is burried there. The Church consists of the Latin Church, also known as the Western Church and twenty-two Eastern Catholic Churches who are in full communion with the Holy See. With three exceptions, most of the latter had fallen into disagreement in ancient times and then returned to full communion. Today, around half of the world's Catholics live in the Americas, although significant populations are from elsewhere, including over 280 million in Europe.
In 2007, the membership of the Church was reported to be 1.131 billion people.[2] This was a significant increase over the 1950 figure of 437 million[3] and the 1970 figure of 654 million.[4] The Catholic population increase of 139% outpaced the world population increase of 117% from 1950-2000.[3] The geographic distribution of Catholics worldwide by continent is as follows; 50% in the Americas, 27% in Europe, 12% in Africa, 10% in Asia and 1% in Oceania.[5]
