The statement reported a handful of the statistics contained in the 2012 "Annuario Pontificio," a yearbook containing information about every Vatican office, as well as every diocese and religious order in the world.

Officials of the Vatican Secretariat of State and its Central Office of Church Statistics presented the first copy of the 2012 yearbook to Pope Benedict XVI during an audience March 10.

Detailed statistics in the yearbook are based on reports from dioceses and religious orders as of Dec. 31, 2010.

The percentage of Catholics declined slightly in South America from 28.54 percent to 28.34 percent of the regional population, and dropped considerably in Europe from 24.05 percent to 23.83 percent. The percentage of Catholics increased in 2010 by just under half a percentage point in Southeast Asia and Africa.

The Vatican said the number of bishops in the world increased from 5,065 to 5,104; the number of priests went from 410,593 to 412,236, increasing everywhere except Europe.

The number of permanent deacons reported -- 39,564 -- was an increase of more than 1,400 over the previous year. 97.5 percent of the world's permanent deacons live in the Americas or in Europe.

The number of men joining a religious order showed "a setback," the Vatican said, with an increase of only 436 male religious worldwide in 2010.

The number of women in religious orders fell by more than 7,000 in 2010, despite showing a 2 percent increase in both Asia and Africa. At the end of the year, Catholic women's orders had 721,935 members.

The number of seminarians around the world showed continued growth, from 117,978 at the end of 2009 to 118,990 at the end of 2010.

In the last five years, it said, the number of seminarians rose more than 14 percent in Africa, 13 percent in Asia and 12.3 percent in Oceania. Numbers decreased in other regions of the world, particularly Europe, which saw a 10.4 percent drop in the number of seminarians between 2005 and 2010.