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03/31/2008: "Muslims more numerous than Catholics"

Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT

"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook.

He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population — a stable percentage — while Muslims were at 19.2 percent.

[ This is seen as a battle for births, rather than a case of religious conversion. The Catholic church's oppositon to contraception will only be stronger now. ]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080330/ap_on_re_eu/vatican_muslims;_ylt=AimGBQRrzTwfhvjXcjhsEcKs0NUE