The Catholic Church in St. Lucia is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope and the curia in Rome. Catholics form roughly a two-thirds majority (61.5%) of the island's population of 163,362 (2004). [1] The entire country comprises a single diocese, the Archdiocese of Castries. [2]
Saint Lucia is a member of the Antilles Episcopal Conference and shares a single apostolic nuncio with the other nations that are part of the episcopal conference.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anglican, and Lutheran churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages.
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
The Catholic Church in Gibraltar is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. There are an estimated 23,000 baptised Catholics in Gibraltar, making up 72 percent of the population.
The Lusitanian Catholic Apostolic Evangelical Church in Portugal is a member church of the Anglican Communion. Like all Anglican Communion churches, it recognises the spiritual leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In addition, the church is an extra-provincial diocese under the metropolitical authority of the archbishop. The current bishop is Jorge Pina Cabral.
An episcopal conference, sometimes called a conference of bishops, is an official assembly of the bishops of the Catholic Church in a given territory. Episcopal conferences have long existed as informal entities. The first assembly of bishops to meet regularly, with its own legal structure and ecclesial leadership function, is the Swiss Bishops' Conference, which was founded in 1863. More than forty episcopal conferences existed before the Second Vatican Council. Their status was confirmed by the Second Vatican Council and further defined by Pope Paul VI's 1966 motu proprio, Ecclesiae sanctae.
The Catholic Church in Angola is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. Approximately 56.4% of the population profess the Catholic faith, due largely to Angola's status as a former Portuguese colony.
The Catholic Church in Fiji is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the canonical authority and spiritual leadership of the Pope of Rome.
The Catholic Church in Japan is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the pope in Rome. In 2005, there were approximately 509,000 Catholics in Japan—just under 0.5% of the total population, and by 2014, there were around 440,000 Japanese Catholics. There are 16 dioceses, including three archdioceses, with 1589 priests and 848 parishes in the country. The bishops of the dioceses form the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan, the episcopal conference of the nation. The main liturgical rites employed in Japan are those of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church in Guyana is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. Bishops in Guyana are members of Antilles Episcopal Conference. Like most other nations that form the AEC, the Apostolic delegate to the bishops' conference is also the Apostolic nuncio to the country, currently American archbishop Thomas Edward Gullickson.
The Catholic Church in Equatorial Guinea is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome.
Kelvin Edward Cardinal Felix, OBE, SLMH, DAH is the Roman Catholic Archbishop emeritus of Castries. He was born in Roseau, Dominica, on 15 February 1933. He became a cardinal at the papal consistory held on 22 February 2014.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Castries is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in the Caribbean. The archdiocese consists of the entirety of the former British dependency of Saint Lucia and is a metropolitan see, the suffragans of the Castries Province being the Dioceses of Roseau, Saint George's in Grenada, St. John's-Basseterre and Kingstown. The archdiocese is a member of the Antilles Episcopal Conference.
Conciliarity is the adherence of various Christian communities to the authority of ecumenical councils and to synodal church governance. It is not to be confused with conciliarism, which is a particular historical movement within the Catholic Church. Different churches interpret conciliarity different ways.
The Roman CatholicDiocese of Kingstown is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in the Caribbean. The diocese comprises the entirety of the nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The diocese is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Castries and a member of the Antilles Episcopal Conference.
The Roman CatholicDiocese of St. George's in Grenada is a diocese, of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in the Caribbean, which encompasses only and the entirety of Grenada. It is a suffragan of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Castries and a member of the Antilles Episcopal Conference, het depends on the missionary Roman Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
A pro-cathedral is a parish church that is temporarily serving as the cathedral or co-cathedral of a diocese or has the same function in a Catholic missionary jurisdiction that is not yet entitled to a proper cathedral, such as an apostolic prefecture or apostolic administration. It is distinct from a proto-cathedral, the term in the Roman Catholic Church for a former cathedral, which typically results from moving an episcopal see to another cathedral, in the same or another city. In a broader context, the term 'proto-cathedral' may be used of a church used by a bishop before a settled cathedral has been designated.
A metropolis religious jurisdiction, or a metropolitan archdiocese, is an episcopal see whose bishop is the metropolitan bishop of an ecclesiastical province. Metropolises, historically, have been important cities in their provinces.
A personal ordinariate, sometimes called a "personal ordinariate for former Anglicans" or more informally an "Anglican ordinariate", is a canonical structure within the Catholic Church established in order to enable "groups of Anglicans" to join the Catholic Church while preserving elements of their liturgical and spiritual patrimony.
The Catholic Church in São Tomé and Príncipe is part of the Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome and forms the largest religion in the country. A majority of the residents São Tomé and Príncipe adhere to Catholicism.