VATICAN- The new edition of the Atlas hierarchicus on the Church's presence in the various continents was presented to the Pope

Vatican City (Fides Service) - This morning, July 6, at 11am, His Exc. Mgr. Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, accompanied by Rev. P. Giancarlo Girardi, SVD, Editor of the publication, and Fr. Leonardo Sileo, OFM, Director of "Urban University Press" Publishing, presented to the Holy Father Benedict XVI, the sixth edition of the Atlas hierarchicus, and donated the first four copies of the work. This new edition was promoted and financed by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, published by the "Urban University Press", the publishing house of the Pontifical Urban University. The introduction of Pope Benedict XVI highlights its importance.
Accurate and detailed lists of statistic notes in color illustrating the current Church's presence in the various continents providing the general framework of Catholics worldwide. Highlights of the new Churches which have been established in recent years and the list of the dioceses.
The previous edition dated back to 1992. The Holy See had repeatedly asked the review and updating. Meanwhile, in fact, many changes had taken place both locally and globally: the new communities had sprung up, the number of the baptized had grown and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, especially dioceses and the Archdioceses, had increased. Consequently, a new atlas was needed, which required four years of work.
As Fr. Girardi, the curator of the work highlights, the objective of the new configuration was not only to provide detailed statistics on individual countries, but also to present a general vision, current and geographical, of the Catholic population. With regards to the data, there are two elements which deserve to be highlighted: the distribution by continents and nations of the dioceses/legal jurisdiction, and the numerical distribution of Catholics, in absolute terms and in proportion to the population of various countries. The languages used are Italian, English, French and Spanish. For place names and the names of the various rites, reference was made to the nomenclature Pontifical Yearbook. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 06/07/2011)