Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church,[note 1] is the world's largest Christian Church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians[note 2] and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and 22 autonomous Eastern Catholic Churches, is the largest religion A religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth. Religion is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, in the country by far. According to a July 2009 study by the Spanish Center of Sociological Research about 76% of Spaniards self-identify as Catholics, 2% other faith, and about 20% identify with no religion Irreligion is an absence of religion, indifference to religion, and/or hostility to religion. Depending on the context, it may be understood as referring to atheism, deism, nontheism, agnosticism, ignosticism, antireligion, skepticism, freethought, or secular humanism. Irreligious people may have convictions equal in depth to those of religious. Most Spaniards do not participate regularly in religious services. This same study shows that of the Spaniards who identify themselves as religious, 58% hardly ever or never go to church, 17% go to church some times a year, 9% some time per month and 15% every Sunday or multiple times per week.[1] A huge majority of young Spaniards, including those who self-identify as Catholic, ignore the church's conservative advice on issues such as pre-marital sex, sexual orientation or contraception. [2][3][4][5] The total number of parish priests has shrunk from 24,300 in 1975 to 19,307 in 2005. Nuns also dropped 6.9% to 54,160 in the period 2000-2005. [6]
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