Such upward trend can be found in all continents, even if the relative change is a bit more marked in Asia and America and a bit lower than the general trend in Africa, Europe and Oceania. As to the presence of priests, the Yearbook shows that their number in Europe and America has been scaled down in favour of Africa and Asia. As a rate, in 2000 the overall number of priests working in Europe and America accounted for approximately 81% of the total, in 2006 they accounted for 78% of the world’s number. The most important rise can be found in Africa where the incidence of priests in 2006 was about 8% of the world’s total. In Asia too priests have followed a positive trend, rising from 43,566 in 2000 to 51,281 in 2006. Students of philosophy and theology in diocesan or religious seminaries are instead 115,480, which is 0.9% more than the previous year; of them, 24,034 are in Africa, 37,150 in the Americas, 30,702 in Asia, 22,618 in Europe and 976 in Oceania.” “
