By ANTARA News/Kyodo
Rome : The Muslim population in the world exceeded that of Catholics in 2006 for the first time in history, the Vatican daily L`Osservatore Romano reported Sunday, adding that the makeover came about as a result of higher fertility rates among Muslims than Catholics.
The newspaper said in its online edition, however, that the overall Christian population including Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians still outnumbered Muslims.
According to the report, Muslims accounted for 19.2 percent of the total world population as of 2006, while Catholics made up 17.4 percent and Christians as a whole roughly 33 percent. No specific numbers were unveiled.
The newspaper said the Islamic population is rising chiefly in developing nations, while the number of Catholics remain almost flat in European nations with some growth being seen in Latin America.
The newspaper put together the numbers for Catholics from all the parishes in the world, while it estimated the Muslim population based on the U.N.-announced demographic numbers after taking into consideration annual birth rates.