Catholic Church in Colombia
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Colombian Catholic Church, or Catholic Church in Colombia, is the branch of the Catholic Church in the South American nation of Colombia.
Organization
It is organized into 13 ecclesiastical provinces, subdivided into 13 archdioceses and 52 dioceses, and a Maronite apostolic exarchate. Over 120 religious orders, institutes, and lay organizations run hundreds of primary and secondary schools, hospitals, clinics, orphanages, colleges, and 8 universities across the country. The best known are Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (in Bogotá) and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (in Cali), both Jesuit universities.
Based on studies and a survey, about 90% of the Colombian population adheres to Christianity, the majority of which (70.9%) are Catholic, while 16.7% adhere to Protestantism (primarily Evangelicalism) or other Christian groups.
In 2020, almost 10,000 priests and over 12,000 nuns served over 4,500 parishes.
History
Catholicism was introduced to the country in 1508. Two dioceses were organized in 1534. The Church grew significantly by the mid-17th century, in spite of the variety of indigenous languages, government interference and competition among religious orders. Some persecution followed the declaration of independence in 1819.
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This entry incorporates text from “Catholic Church in Colombia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.