The number of Catholics worldwide is rising fastest in Africa while the church continues to suffer from a shortage of priests in some parts of the world.

According to the Vatican’s latest statistics, released on April 6, the number of Catholics globally rose 1%, to 1.3 billion, in 2015.

In Africa, the number of baptized Catholics rose 19% – to 222 million, from 186 million in 2014. The Vatican noted that America — North, Central and South — had the greatest concentration of Catholics, while numbers in Europe remained relatively stable.

Despite an increase in the number of Catholics, there was a fall in the number of priests called to ministry in some parts of the world. The number of priests rose by more than 1,100 in Africa and 1,100 in Asia but fell by 2,502 (6 percent) in Europe between 2014 and 2015. There were a total of 47 new priests in the Americas in 2015.

“After reaching its highest in 2011, the number of seminarians has been undergoing a gradual contraction,” the Vatican said. “The only exception is Africa, which does not seem affected by the vocation crisis for the moment and will remain the region with the greatest potential.”

Worldwide, there were 466,215 ordained Catholics, including 5,304 bishops, 415,656 priests and 45,255 deacons. Brazil had the highest number of Catholics – 172 million – accounting for 1 in 4 Catholics in the Ameri-cas, while Mexico had 110 million and the U.S. recorded 72 million Catholics. Colombia had 45 million, Argentina 41 million.

A German theologian-bishop has called for the ordination of woman deacons, saying it is more important than relaxing mandatory celibacy or ordaining married men of proven virtue (viri probati) to the priesthood. “Women should be ordained deacons. It is a sign of the times,” said Bishop Gebhard Fürst of Rottenburg-Stuttgart.

He told a 27 March gathering of the German Catholic Women’s Association (KDFB) the time had come for women deacons. The association, which has been demanding the move for over twenty years, was marking its 100th anniversary.

In his keynote address to the group, Bishop Fürst said the faithful had been waiting for decades for the Church to answer the question of women deacons. He said the answer was therefore long overdue and now imperative.

The 68-year-old bishop, who succeeded Cardinal Walter Kasper some seventeen years ago as head of the diocese, said he interpreted Pope Francis’ silence on the issue was a sign that the Pope was “not totally opposed” to the subject.

Bp Fürst said he intended to campaign for the women’s diaconate in German bishops’ conference since its members were divided on the issue. How-ever, his spokesman Uwe Renz told the German daily Stuttgarter Nachrichten (27 March) that the bishop would not be appealing directly to the Vatican.

Germany has no plans to introduce an ‘Islam law’ codifying the rights and obligations of Muslims, a government spokesman said on Monday (April 3), dismissing an idea floated by allies of Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of federal elections in September.

Merkel, who will seek a fourth term in what is expected to be a close-fought ballot, has come under fire for opening Germany’s doors to refugees, more than one million of whom – mostly Muslims – have entered the country over the past two years.

Seeking to boost support for the chancellor’s conservatives, senior Merkel ally Julia Kloeckner stoked the integration debate at the weekend by calling for stricter rules for Islamic preachers and a ban on foreign funding of mosques.

Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert dismissed the idea, which Kloeckner – who is deputy leader of the chancellor’s Christian Democrats (CDU) – and other senior party members want to enshrine in an Islam law.

“Such a law is now not an issue for government business,” Seibert told a news conference, stressing the high regard Merkel’s ruling coalition has for religious freedom in Germany.

The Archbishop of West-minster and four British imams will meet with Pope Francis in a long planned trip that the Cardinal says will help build interfaith relations following the Westminster terrorist attack which left five dead and around 50 injured. They are due to have a papal audience on 5 April, exactly two weeks after Islamic extremist Khalid Masood, drove a car into pedestrians crossing Westminster Bridge before fatally stabbing a police officer outside the Houses of Parliament.

Pope Francis washed the feet of inmates at a prison in central Italy during a Holy Thursday liturgy, an annual ritual which he has used as a symbol of papal humility and his mission to the marginalised. On 13 April, Francis  travelled  to a detention centre in Paliano, 40 miles south of Rome, where he  celebrated the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, a liturgy where the priest emulates the moment Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. The prison in Paliano, in the province of Frosinone, is housed in a fortress style building in what is understood to have also been used by some of Francis predecessors as a prison during the 19th century papal states. This is not the first time the Pope has celebrated the Last Supper Mass in a prison. Soon after his election, Francis travelled to Rome’s Casal del Marmo youth detention centre where he made history by washing the feet of both women and Muslim inmates, a moment that set the tone for a papacy that would be focussed on the “peripheries.”

Cardinal Walter Kasper has told German media he believes Pope Francis favours ordaining married men of proven virtue (known by the Latin term, viri probati), but is also sure the Pope wants to leave the decision up to individual bishops’ conferences.

“The (vocation) situation differs so widely in different parts of the world that a uniform worldwide solution is not possible,” the cardinal said on April 6th in a long interview with the German Church’s Internet portal katholisch.de.

The occasion was the 60th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. “Each bishops’ conference must first decide whether it is in favour (of ordaining married men) and describe how it intends to go about this. And then it must bring its proposals before the Pope,” said the cardinal, a world-class theologian known to be close to Francis.

“I have the impression that if their application is well-founded, it will be met positively. The ball is therefore back in the bishops conferences’ court,” he said.

The cardinal said that as far as Germany and many parts of the Western world are concerned it is “imperative and most urgent” to discuss the possibility of ordaining viri probati because the shortage of priests has become drastic. “We simply cannot carry on with the situation as it is at present. Priests today are often managers with four or five parishes to look after. They have no time for pastoral work,” the 84-year-old cardinal said.

The Vatican has said Pope Francis will continue with his visit to Egypt later this month despite raised security fears following the deadly terrorist attacks on churches at the weekend.

Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, a top diplomat at the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, said the Pope is sticking with his plan to make the trip to Cairo on 28-29 April, where Francis will address a conference on peace at the famous Al-Azhar university.

“What happened causes confusion and great suffering but it cannot prevent the Pope’s mission for peace,” the archbishop explained in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. “Without hiding from reality the Pope invites us to look to the future with hope. And as always he wants to led by example.” The Palm Sunday attacks on two Coptic churches killed at least 44 with fundamentalist group Daesh – Islamic State – claiming responsibility for the atrocities.

Archbishop Becciu stressed that dialogue with the Islamic world was a way of “isolating” extremists and that the Pope wanted distinguish between acts of terror and the Muslim faith, something which has gained him the respect of Arab leaders.

“The honesty of his positions have earned him the gratitude of Muslims,” he explained. “Many Islamic authorities have met the Pope to thank him, while many others have written to express admiration for his moral authority.” Coptic Pope survives unharmed as at least 44 die In Palm Sunday suicide attacks in Egypt. When he is in Egypt Francis’ meetings will take place in secure and tightly-controlled locations while the papal Mass will be cele- brated amidst high security at a closed stadium of Cairo attended by around 30,000 faithful.

A visiting lecturer at Belgium’s Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) has been dismissed after arguing that abortion was murder in his philosophy class for first-year students and saying it could be “worse than rape.”

The comments by Stéphane Mercier created an uproar at the university, the francophone twin of the Flemish-language Catholic University of Leuven, after a feminist group complained he was presenting his personal opinions in the class. UCL first suspended Mercier’s two courses while his case was reviewed. He later received a letter from the university advising him of his dismissal without giving any reason, he told the Belgian Church information service CathoBel.

Amid the discussion, the Belgian bishops’ conference repeated the Church’s opposition to abortion but also expressed confidence in UCL’s internal review. A spokesman stressed the issue was between UCL and Mercier and that he was not an employee of the Church.

A UCL statement said his courses were suspended because “the serenity required for teaching was not assured.” It said its inquiry had led to disciplinary measures against Mercier but did not disclose the details.