Number of Catholic priests in the world 1945?

Answer 1

What you are going to need to do is to locate a very good Catholic university with a Catholic library.

You need to locate the book
"Statistical Yearbook of the Church" in Latin "Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae" for the year 1945. This is the current title of the publication from the Vatican and it might have gone by a different name in 1945.

The current books might contain data for past years if the 1945 copy is not available. Talk to a research librarian at a Catholic University Library in charge of theology. You can often call the library and they will help you to track down what resource you need, IF YOU ARE SERIOUSLY DOING RESEARCH OR WORK RELATED TO YOUR JOB.

Here is some additional information that I found.
ESTIMATED NUMBERS FOR 1957
Welles, Sam. The World's Great Religions, New York: Time Incorporated (1957); pg. 207.
"...Pope, Pius XII, wields spiritual authority--through 62 cardinals, 1,427 bishops, some 400,000 secular priests, 300,000 religious priests and lay brothers, and 970,000 sisters--over some 484 million souls served by 410,000 churches in the world. "


http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/
is good for current data.

http://www.adherents.com/ has a bunch of statistical data that you can look at.

Answer 2

I don't know if anyone knows the answer to that. These two quotes are from the link below.

"In February, 1944, the Times provided a partial list of Catholic church property confiscated by the Reich. Reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation, it was claimed that by May 1, 1943, more than 3,400 Catholic monasteries and clerical institutions in Germany had been confiscated by the Nazis. 16,495 Catholic priests and seminarians were inducted forcibly into the German Army. Of these 1,597 were killed at the front, 593 were missing, and about 100 were so seriously wounded that they could not resume their priestly tasks. (N.Y. Times, February 29, 1944, p. 9, 1) The arrests of priests continued through the year, especially in Bavaria and in the more industrialized areas of Germany. (N.Y. Times, November 19, 1944, p. 24, 6) In November, the Times claimed another 400 priests had been seized by the Reich in Germany since the beginning of October. (N.Y. Times, November 19, 1944, p. 24, 6) More priests were reported imprisoned in Dachau by the summer of 1945. (N.Y. Times, June 24, 1945, p. 27, 7)"

.... and ....

"There was also the arrest, deportation, and murder of thousands of priests and religious in the camps. (N.Y. Times, June 3, 1945, p. 22. The full document takes all of pages 1 and 22) Reports about the bombing of the Vatican by the Nazis on November 5, 1943 emerged (N.Y. Times, July 2, 1945, p. 5, 3). In September, 1945, documents were uncovered in Berlin revealing what the Times called “A secret struggle between the German Gestapo and the Catholic hierarchy which lasted from the rise of Nazism to its fall.” The Times said that Gestapo agents stole, bribed and worked to get access to messages from the Holy See to Catholic bishops in Germany and western Europe during the war years. The churchmen were seen as enemies of Hitler’s new order. (N.Y. Times, September 26, 1945, p.10, 4) This late revelation made sense of the earlier attempts to vilify the pope and the Catholic hierarchy by the Nazi regimes and, later by the Soviets."

Answer 3

Easy to find this out. There is an equation the police use. Take the total number of boys in any given country from a census, divide by 6 (this gets you altar boy figures) and then subtract 7, then divide by 12. This will give you the number of priests set free to do their evil deeds on altar boys and other unsuspecting souls.

Answer 4

Hmmmm.

Answer 5

if this is the real number is a very interesting year for WWII

Answer 6

300k+

Answer 7

check this out it may help
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_priests

Answer 8

701,489