VATICAN CITY, Oct. 17 -- The Catholic Church has stopped losing priests, though only just, and the gain is arriving in Africa and Asia while Europe keeps losing them.

The Church counted 407,421 priests at the end of 2024, 425 more than a year earlier, according to the annual dossier the Vatican's Fides News Agency released on Friday. Africa added 1,676 and Asia 1,065. Europe lost 2,483. The release comes in the week the Vatican disclosed that Pope Leo XIV has lung cancer, and two days before the 100th World Mission Sunday, the occasion the dossier is prepared for.

Fides itself calls the rise the first in five years, and the rest of its numbers show why that is thin comfort. Catholics grew by 16.69 million to 1.422 billion, so the Church...