WASHINGTON (CNS) – Results of a study released June 1 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) said that the highest growth rates for numbers of priests are in Africa and Asia.

The Church has about 20,000 fewer priests in 2012 than it did in 1980, a drop of 17 percent. While the number of priests in Africa and Asia doubled, the Americas netted an increase of less than 2 percent, and Europe’s priest population skidded by 78,090, or 32 percent.

“In 2012, Europe was home to less than one in four Catholics,” or 23 percent, the study said. “Yet this region still has 55 percent of all Catholic parishes and 42 percent of all Catholic priests.”

“Perhaps the most challenging aspect for the Catholic Church in Europe is maintaining a sufficient number of clergy to staff its parishes and still serve a sizable and historic Catholic population,” it added. The average percentage of a European country’s Catholics saying they attend Mass every week has dipped from 37 percent in the 1980s to 20 percent since 2010. But the number of students enrolled in Catholic institutions of higher learning has more than doubled in Europe since 1980.

In 1980, Africa had fewer diocesan priests per parish than Europe does now. In 2012, according to the study, “there were nearly two diocesan priests per parish – providing the pastoral flexibility that few dioceses around the world could imagine.”

The Catholic population in the Americas grew by 56 percent from 1980 to 2012 – outpacing population growth in the region overall. The Catholic population in the Americas is expected to grow from 598.8 million now to 690.1 million in 2040, a hike of 22 percent, according to CARA. “This region is in need of many new parishes, with the ratio of Catholics per parish currently exceeding 10,000,” it said.