2007/06/27

How Many Christians?

I missed it at the time, but the Vatican and the UAE established diplomatic ties at the end of last month.

The thing that jumped out at me was this: "The Vatican said more than a million Christians — most of them Catholic — are estimated to work in the Emirates". Really? Estimated by whom? I'm not sure where they are getting their facts, but whoever it is is being more than a little generous to the number of Christians here.

If there are 4.5 million people here, then that means that more than 20% population would be Christian. But most figures that I have seen say that the population here is more than 90% Muslim. The US State Department and Wikipedia estimate that there were between 360,000 and 400,000 Christians in 2005. The CIA estimates 180,000.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You're right those figures sound a bit dodgy. What puzzles me more, though, is the report itself. The Bishop in Abu Dhabi has been the official Vatican representative here for ages (decades, at least). From what I know, he's at least been able to exert diplomatic influence when needed, which basically means diplomatic relations, if you ask me.

You could check with some of the Catholics you know (if any).