Under Pope Francis, the College of Cardinals has become less European
Pope Francis’ picks for the College of Cardinals have tilted the leadership structure away from its historic European base and toward countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Pope Francis’ picks for the College of Cardinals have tilted the leadership structure away from its historic European base and toward countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Among the 32 places surveyed, support for legal same-sex marriage is highest in Sweden, where 92% of adults favor it, and lowest in Nigeria, where only 2% back it.
Majorities in most of the 27 places around the world surveyed in 2023 and 2024 say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
In 2020, properties in 102 of the 198 countries and territories in the study were targeted in incidents tied to religion.
Incidents against Jewish people in 2020 ranged from verbal and physical assaults to vandalism of cemeteries and scapegoating for the pandemic.
Social hostilities around the world involving religion declined in 2019 to the lowest level in five years.
Globally, Muslims live in the biggest households, followed by Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jews and the religiously unaffiliated.
By 2060, more than four-in-ten Christians and 27% of Muslims around the world will call sub-Saharan Africa home.
While many, especially in the U.S., may associate Islam with the Middle East or North Africa, nearly two-thirds of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region.
In 2014, the median level of religious hostilities in the Middle East and North Africa reached a level four times that of the global median.
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