Catholic Population
How many Catholics are there in Australia?
According to the 2021 Australian Census, the Catholic population was 5,075,910 or 20.0% of the total Australian population.
Between 2016 and 2021, both the number of Catholics and the proportion of Catholics in the population decreased.
In 2016, the Catholic population was 5,291,8 34 or 22.6% of the total Australian population.
In 2011, the Catholic population was 5,439,267 or 25.3% of the total Australian population.
In 2006, the Catholic population was 5,126,884 or 25.8% of the total Australian population.
Mass attendance
How many Catholics go to Mass on Sundays?
In 2021, about 417,300 or 8.2% of all Australian Catholics physically attended Mass on a typical Sunday. The 2021 National Count of Attendance was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic when various health measures affected attendance patterns for most religious groups, including Catholics. As an alternative to attending in person, Mass attendees were able to join various broadcast Masses. On a typical weekend in May 2021, 30,100 Australian households watched the televised Mass for You At Home.
In 2016, about 623,356 people, or 11.8% of all Australian Catholics, attended Mass on a typical Sunday.
We know from the 2016 National Church Life Survey that most people (about 85%) who attend Mass go every Sunday and the percentage of Catholics attending Mass two or three times a month is 8%. Most people at Mass on weekends (around 98%) are Catholic, and most others identify as another Christian denomination.
In 2011, about 12.2% of Catholics attended Mass on a typical Sunday.
Dioceses and Parishes
How many dioceses are there in Australia?
There are 35 dioceses in Australia. (A diocese is a section of the Church entrusted to the leadership of a bishop.) There are twenty-eight dioceses based on territorial divisions, five dioceses of Eastern Catholic Churches, one military diocese, where the bishop’s responsibility is the pastoral care of Catholic members of the Australian Defence Forces and their families, and a Personal Ordinariate which retains some elements of its Anglican liturgical, spiritual and pastoral heritage that are compatible with the Catholic tradition.
How many parishes are there?
The 2025-26 Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia lists 1,316 parishes, including 102 belonging to Eastern Catholic Churches.
What are Eastern Catholic Churches?
Almost all of Australia’s 5.1 million Catholics belong to what is known as the Latin Rite (or the Western Catholic Church, as recorded in Census data), but there are also around 1.5% of Catholics who belong to Eastern Catholic Churches, often referred to as Eastern Rites. The five largest Eastern Catholic Churches in Australia are the Maronite, Melkite, Ukrainian, Chaldean and Syro-Malabar Churches, each of which has been established as a diocese (or eparchy), with a bishop (or eparch) who is a member of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. In addition to these five Eastern Catholic Churches, there are also four others that have clergy residing in Australia. These are the Armenian, Syrian, Coptic and Russian Catholic Churches. There are probably Catholics belonging to other Eastern Rites as well, but they do not gather as distinct, organised Churches.
Priests
How many priests are there in Australia?
In 2024, the number of priests in Australia was 2,853, comprising 1,782 diocesan priests and 1,071 priests belonging to religious orders (Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia 2025-26, p. 761). (Diocesan priests belong to a locality called a diocese and are responsible to the bishop of the diocese or archdiocese, while religious order priests belong to groups such as the Jesuits, Franciscans or Salesians, and are responsible to the leaders of their order. There are about 40 orders of priests in Australia.)
How does this number compare with the past?
The number of priests in Australia peaked at 3,895 in 1971 and remained above 3,800 from 1968 until the early 1980s. There has been a decline of around 27% since 1971.
What is the age profile of priests?
There is no complete profile available on the age of Australian priests. A 1996 study found that the average age of diocesan priests working in parishes was 56 years. Figures published by the Archdiocese of Melbourne, Australia’s largest diocese in terms of the number of priests, showed that the average age of diocesan priests on appointment (excluding retired priests) had risen from 44 in 1977 to 60 by 2001.
How many men are training to be priests?
In 2024, according to the Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia 2025-26 (p. 762), there were 211 men training to be priests in Australia’s diocesan seminaries (i.e., not including those training to be religious order priests). In contrast, there were 546 in 1969. By 1991, that figure had dropped to 172, and then rose again in intervening years, although it fluctuates somewhat from year to year.
What is the ratio of Catholics to each priest in Australia, and how does that compare with the rest of the world?
The 2025-2026 Official Catholic Directory shows that there were 1,779 Catholics for every priest in Australia. According to the 2022 Statistical Yearbook of the Church (p.102-109), the number of Catholics per priest by continent was as follows:
Africa: 5,094
North America: 2,235
Central America, Mainland: 7,392
Central America, Antilles: 7,313
South America: 7,641
Asia: 2,096
Europe: 1,846
Oceania (including Australia): 2,576
World: 3,453
Religious Sisters and Brothers
How many religious sisters and brothers are there in Australia?
The 2025-26 Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia records that there are 3,023 religious sisters and 471 religious brothers in Australia (p. 762). In 2007, there were about 5,700 religious sisters and 1,020 religious brothers in Australia. The sisters belong to various orders or congregations, such as the Josephites (founded by Mary MacKillop), the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity, the Family Care Sisters, and many others. In total, there are just under 100 congregations of women religious in Australia, and five congregations of brothers, including the Christian Brothers, the Marist Brothers, and the De La Salle Brothers.
References
- The Official Directory of the Catholic Church in Australia: 2025-2026 (St Pauls Publications, 2025). The annual directory is available from St Paul’s Publications: https://secure.stpauls.com.au/strathfield/.
- The Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2023 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2025).
- For more Census data on Catholics in Australia: https://ncpr.catholic.org.au/catholic-social-profiles
- For more information about Australian Catholic dioceses: “Dioceses” in Catholics Australia