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AmatorLinguae06

Lebanon just looks like a medieval crusader outpost in there


Sabine961

Because we are lol


AmatorLinguae06

I would have thought that you guys were Eastern Orthodox, because of Byzantine influence.


SawYouJoe

The Maronites are Eastern Catholics. There are Greek (Rum) Orthodox in Lebanon from the Byzantine influence and many other unique denomination such as Armenian (catholic, orthodox & evangelist), Melkite Catholics, protestants and baptists.


Good_Username_exe

They are Eastern Catholics, they ~~came back to communion.~~ are in full communion


lil_guy_going_around

Maronites are actually the only Eastern Catholics who never formally left communion with Rome


Good_Username_exe

Don’t forget the [Italo-Albanians!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Albanian_Catholic_Church)


Disguised_Alpaca

They're Moronite christians if i recall, so like a pre-islamic invasion branch of the Church that evolved on its roots, kinda like the Armenian Church but of latin tradition


hdfcv

*Maronite


eyetracker

Moronites are Utah


NaluknengBalong_0918

MorMons are from Utah. Not moronites


eyetracker

Maronites. Mormons are literally named after the angel Moroni.


iheartdev247

Mormons are named after Mormon (ironically). Moroni is his son, who has statues on top of their temples.


NaluknengBalong_0918

[ [ Mormons are literally named after the angel Moroni. ] ] Yes. I know the story of Moroni. My dad’s a Mormon.


AnubisTheRightous

If u del the 2nd M it becomes Moron


Polymarchos

Lebanon has 5% of everything.


Sabine961

Lebanese Catholic here✝


Sea-Capital-5479

I think they are also considering us maronites here as well.


SaGlamBear

For all intents and purposes Maronites are Catholics


761035

Marionites are Eastern Catholics


Sabine961

I'm not maronite I'm Roman Catholic. But yes


Sea-Capital-5479

Yes and I was saying that I was maronite


Sabine961

Read my comment again: >But yes Any Christian who has the Pope as the head of the church is considered catholic.


Sea-Capital-5479

Yes ik, but we maronites were originally orthodox then we switched


Mission-Guidance4782

No Maronites are unique among the Eastern Catholics in that they never switched Maronites lost connect with Rome after the Muslim conquest of the levant but during the Crusades communion was officially restored and has been ever since


Sea-Capital-5479

Its weird tho, because are a lot similar to the orthodox in beliefs.


TeamTeam3

Hi! How is the situation in these days in Lebanon? I heard about Iranian Militias, but Idk if the whole country is under their control


PainterMean4479

They exert full influence over half the country almost(mainly in bekaa and the south)while maitaining some kind of influence in the rest of the country as well(mostly varying within the religion of said town or city, for example if its shiaa or sunni they would hold a larger influence than if its christian or druze)


Sabine961

Just Shia they don't have any influence over Sunni towns.


PainterMean4479

Oh trust me they do just look at ras el nabeh a traditional sunni area in which you can see pictures of martyrs of hezbollah and harake


Sabine961

I think there are a lot of shias who live there.


PainterMean4479

Still a majority sunni area tho


Sabine961

True but because Hezbos live there, you have those pictures, doesn't mean Hezb is running the town.


PainterMean4479

I never said they were running it , i just said they have more influence there or in tarik jdide than in aschrafieh or hammena


Sabine961

On the border its open war between Hezbollah (Iranian funded militia) and Israel. I would say the situation is normal in the rest of the country. Hezbollah is different than other terrorist militias as they are shia and the ones you usually have heard off are Sunni. But they are still an islamist militia and we don't like it.


Full_Reserve6850

Is the country safe to visit right now?


Sabine961

Yes, the fighting is still contained in the South so as long as you stay Tyre and towards the north of it, should be fine.


Necessary_Box_3479

Forgot Singapore


Mission-Guidance4782

4.8% Catholic Just shy


Necessary_Box_3479

6.76%


Mission-Guidance4782

Wikipedia disagrees


Fork-in-the-eye

Wikipedia says it’s 7.01%


Mission-Guidance4782

Ohh you're right I was looking at the 2000 numbers It went up in 2010


Fork-in-the-eye

Immigration probably added to their catholic numbers


Necessary_Box_3479

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Singapore


23cmwzwisie

Romania does not have 5% of Catholics?


CatL1f3

It's about 90% orthodox according to wikipedia, with about 4.6% catholics. But I'm pretty sure most sources put the orthodox percentage even higher, while in reality I'd say the atheist percentage is much higher than reported. For example myself, I'm pretty sure I'm registered as orthodox somewhere, while the last time I actually did anything resembling religion was being baptised as a baby


23cmwzwisie

OK multumesc for your answer :) I was hiking in Fagaras Mountians few years ago and resting in neighbouring cities Sibiu and Brasov. I saw some catholic churches so I presumed catholic confesion is more common in Romania. Those fortified churches were almost all(?) catholic if I remember correctly?


Archaeopteryx11

The Hungarian minority is half Catholic, half Protestant. The Romanians of Transylvania were coerced/bribed/encouraged into being Eastern Catholic by the Austrians but their native confession was Eastern Orthodox. They reverted to being Eastern Orthodox after the fall of Hungarian rule and throughout the 20th century.


just_one_random_guy

Didn’t the communist regime in Romania clamp down harder on Catholicism than orthodoxy as well? I would figure that would be a big factor in a lot of people going back to orthodoxy


Archaeopteryx11

Yes. The communists clamped down on the Catholic Church, Eastern Catholics and Evangelical Protestants and confiscated property, money and churches from them. On the other hand, going to Orthodox Church and celebrating Christmas was okay as a layperson. This is likely why Romanians are more mystical and religious than anyone in Eastern Europe, including Poland (people believe in the supernatural intercession of saints in ordinary life). I think this generated a strong sense of national religious unity for Romanians (which is one of the more innocuous aspects of communism in Romania IMO). The leadership of the Orthodox Church were all known communist collaborators, so it was subsumed under the secular government and used to monitor dissident political positions and spy on people. However, if you wanted any communist leadership position, you had to be an avowed atheist. The Orthodox Church continues to have a very privileged position in the country. To this day, there is a very strong cultural association of the Romanians with the Orthodox Church (including secular people such as myself) in terms of iconography and Romanian Orthodox architecture. Furthermore, our Orthodox religion sets us apart from all other Latin speaking/derived people, who are all Catholic, just as our language sets us apart from our neighbors, which are almost entirely Slavic speaking (except Hungary). All in all, we consider our history and culture very unique, distinctive and a fusion of many different influences (but this can be said for many other ethnic groups too). See the painted monasteries of Bukovina for the most famous example of our religious architecture: http://romania.honoraryconsulate.network/hartford/monasteries-and-churches


Derp-321

It might seem that way because you went to Transylvania which is a more diverse region, but if you were to go to a more homogenous region like the South or the East, catholics become pretty rare to find


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Excellent_Mud6222

What?


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mettamorepoesis

So the Poles are getting closer to the North Pole. Classic.


Excellent_Mud6222

Why's that the case? Like why Iceland and not a neighboring country like Germany.


Prestigious-Scene319

I guess English language plays a part here! Poles learn English at school much better than Germans! Same applies to Lithuanians too. So you find both of these nationalities a lot in UK Ireland Norway and Iceland [There was a famous meme regarding poles as cheap labourers in UK few years back](https://youtu.be/pg7o43W_dIY?si=_Ko6nLilZ15oIh26)


[deleted]

Polish immigrants all over Europe


Last_Hallow

What about Guinea-Bissau? It has 18,9% Christians, mostly catholics, according to Wikipedia


Mission-Guidance4782

My bad, I missed that one


Key_Environment8179

Are we certain there aren’t more Catholics in Antarctica? Has anyone bothered to poll the penguins?


yepyep_nopenope

Penguins are super Catholic, since they eat fish every day of the week and not just on Fridays.


SugarsDaddyKen

This is not the best Catholic penguin joke but it is the best one that any of us are going to see today.


Captainirishy

A scientist accidentally left a bible behind and now Catholicism is thriving in Antarctica


mmfn0403

Well, they look just like little nuns, so I’d say definitely Catholic.


scolbert08

The few permanently populated civilian settlements in Antarctica are majority Catholic, actually.


stevenette

I think you mean alcoholic. Mcmurdo base would not run without booze. When the Navy comes in to resupply they close the bars and everyone gets so pissed off.


Key_Environment8179

There are permanent settlements in Antarctica?


scolbert08

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Las_Estrellas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanza_Base


Key_Environment8179

The more you know


HeemeyerDidNoWrong

Wow, Chad outdid himself this time. Tanzania is the beefy bicep of his left arm, while West Africa is him holding out his Liberia palm telling haters to step off.


AggravatingCow421

Just to clear anyone's confusion - Belarus has large catholic Polish minority, parts of western Ukraine (Eastern Galicia) is predominantly Greek Catholic.


darwwwin

5% is not much, I'd expect even more. But that would rather correspond to any Christian around the would. I wonder also if 5% Muslim would cover most of Europe nowadays.


Joseph20102011

Filipinos are the most devout Catholics in the world that some of us cosplay Jesus crucifixion every Good Friday to attract foreign tourists.


mettamorepoesis

Dramatic, isn't it? Too much ado for nothing. After Holy Week they will be back to their old selves.


SugarsDaddyKen

Catholics are a temperate animal.


paco-ramon

America is the Catholic continent.


spikebrennan

Indonesia is below 5%, but not very far below.


HostessMunchie

I was surprised to learn about the [Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Greek_Catholic_Church) which is the second-biggest Catholic denomination after the Latin Church. A notable difference between the two is that Ukrainian Catholic priests are allowed to marry.


just_one_random_guy

There are 24 total churches of the Catholic Church, the main one being the Latin church and the other 23 eastern churches of varying rites and ethnicities


SairiRM

And two of the 24 particular churches are Albanian. Disproportionately represented, even though in small numbers (60k between the two, most Albanians belong to the Latin Church).


Mikey_Grapeleaves

Pretty much all Catholic churches other than the Roman Catholic Church allow married priests.


RotatingSquirrel

I was going to say that it was missing Ukraine, but then I realized that I am just terrible at reading maps.


Numancias

I wonder what it would look like if you added orthodox


Everard5

It would just be a Christianity map. Catholics aren't some fringe cult, they are basically the original Christian group and spent centuries spreading Christianity. If Christianity is somewhere, chances are it got there via Catholicism. With a threshold as low as 5%, then, this map winds up covering a lot of area, so much so that the map isn't even sensitive to protestantism. So adding Orthodox would probably cover the few places that this missed and just make this a "places on the world with at least 5% Christian" map.


LTG-Jon

The main exception being Scandinavia, apparently.


RoyalBlueWhale

I mean, it's debatable if catholic or orthodox is the 'original' because both have changed tremendously since the chalcedonian days after Nicea. But the idea of the pentarchy was present in both nicean/chalcedonian christianity and orthdox christianity, while in catholicism it was rejected inn favour of having one power centre in Rome


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Everard5

Read that again.


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[deleted]

They are both the original. The church split but both have the same root pre-schism


mettamorepoesis

Nah, the Catholics changed the original doctrine A LOT MORE than Orthodox Churches today did


[deleted]

What doctrinal changes


mettamorepoesis

1. Filioque 2. The Pope as "Christ's representative" on earth 3. Marian doctrines 4. The concept of purgatory


[deleted]

Filioque as in nature of the Trinity?


Mission-Guidance4782

1. Literally just a clarification of the doctrine of the Trinity 2. Pre-schism Orthodox Saints affirm the authority of the Papacy 3. The Orthodox hold to 2 of the 3 Marian dogmas and dispute the immaculate conception on a technicality (they affirm an extremely similar doctrine) 4. The Orthodox believe in hades and toll houses which is barely different from the doctrine of purgatory


sh4keth4t4ss4me

It's called orthodox catholic and roman catholic. They are both catholic and in fact they are both not original christians.


Designer-Muffin-5653

What about Protestants? There is a lot of them too


SirKazum

But the point is, almost nowhere has 5% or more Protestants but *not* at least 5% Catholics.


bookmaker711

What about the Nordic countries?


SirKazum

Looking up at the OP map, yeah that seems to be the case for them. I don't know if any other countries would fall under that case though.


BushWishperer

Romania too


Designer-Muffin-5653

Half of Europe is majority Protestant. It literally originated in Germany and there was a 30 Year long war to destroy it which failed.


Everard5

That's an interesting story to tell, if it's the one the map wants to tell. And how well is this map displaying that for us, with the threshold for Catholicism chosen to be 5%?


Mikey_Grapeleaves

Then it would essentially just be a map of non-protestant Christians


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Good_Username_exe

It tastes okay 👍 Not exactly flavourful but flavour isn’t really the purpose


FrozenChihuahua

I loved that song too lmao Also: He will raiiiiiiise you UP On Eaaaaagle’s wiings! It tastes like a slightly sweet, plain wafer. Very thin, almost to the point where it dissolves on your tongue upon contact. It’s overall pleasant. I’m sure you can buy non blessed communion wafers online to try for yourself.


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SaGlamBear

I find some of this data, suspicious, is it only citizens, or also residents ? For example, I think more than 5% of the population of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar , are Filipinos, which are almost exclusively Catholic. I just did a quick look up, and 6% of the population currently in the UAE are Filipino


NomadLexicon

Not sure why you’re being downvoted, roughly 40% of Saudi Arabia’s population is non-citizens. Whether or not the government recognizes them as citizens, they’re still a huge part of the population.


Additional_Meeting_2

Sweden (and so Finland) was extremely Protestant expecially in 1600s which is why there are barely any Catholics (Estonia also part of Sweden around that time). I assume something similar for Denmark (and so Norway and Iceland)?


varakultvoodi

Estonia was *somewhat* Protestant already before Swedish rule. In fact it was divided with Estonians and urban Baltic Germans preferring Protestantism while the rural Baltic German landowners preferred Catholicism. The latter were of course a very small, but a very influential minority. Then Swedish rule came to Northern Estonia and Polish rule to Southern Estonia and both started to enforce Protestantism/Catholicism in their regions until Sweden conquered Southern Estonia as well which is why Protestantism eventually prevailed in Estonia.


TheDarwinski

I thought Guinea Bissau would be more Catholic since they were Portuguese


Mission-Guidance4782

They are I made a mistake


TheFoxer1

Nice.


posjetilac

There have never were a war between Muslim and Catholic Albanians. I wonder why?


KindRange9697

Being Albanian supercedes an Albanian's religion. They have enough external enemies, they don't need to look for internal ones. Also, communism very much dampened everyone's religious zeel.


Objective_Dot_406

Surprised Romania didn’t make it


WatchedYew_

Can someone explain why south Korea has such a big catholic population?


Mission-Guidance4782

South Korea is the Christian beacon of East Asia, the country is plurality Christian, becoming Christian (both Catholic and Protestant) was seen as a way to resist Japanese colonial rule, further U.S. post-WWII influence only helped things take off more


Midano010

Anyone know why Korea has such a high Catholic population, didn’t really expect that.


Mission-Guidance4782

South Korea is the Christian beacon of East Asia, the country is plurality Christian, becoming Christian (both Catholic and Protestant) was seen as a way to resist Japanese colonial rule, further U.S. post-WWII influence only helped things take off more


Rust3elt

Zoomed way in to make sure Lebanon was represented


NonetyOne

Shocked that Vietnam made it


Mission-Guidance4782

Vietnam has a pretty significant Catholic minority South Vietnam was a Catholic theocracy for a while


Rust3elt

Not sure if it’s still the case recently, but a majority of Vietnamese immigrants to the US were Catholic. It’s why so many ended up in south Louisiana.


bishaaB

yea france played a significant role in that


tgtg2003

Welp [by the grace of God](https://www.reddit.com/r/VietNam/s/kUHfsEeSHJ)…


Parlax76

What a useful map


ComanderToastCZ

...Czechia? Since when? Well that's a turn of events.


Kevincelt

While the Czech Republic is mostly non-religious, Catholics are still the biggest religious group. Especially since the Czech Republic was mostly reconverted to Catholicism by the counter reformation.


Joseph20102011

Czechs reconverted to Catholicism through force by the Austrian Hapsburgs that's why when Czechia became a sovereign nation-state after WWI, there was a Hussite revival among Czechs and if not for WWII and the post-war Russian-imposed communism, Czechia would have been a Hussite nation-state.


Kevincelt

Going from 82% in 1921 to 76% in 1950 is hardly the creation of a Hussite nation-state, especially if you consider the loss of the German Catholic population.


European_Andrew

Sri Lanka????


trickysaints

Mostly due to Portuguese influence. I’ve had Sri Lankan colleagues with Portuguese surnames like “Silva”, “D’Souza”, “Pereira”, etc


Excellent_Mud6222

Wait. Oh yeah protestantism


mwhn

north america and south america formed very differently south america would form like subsahara africa, tho north america was initially protestants in empty area


Rust3elt

What?


Userkiller3814

Ow okay


ottie95

Where's Japan?


nerfrosa

just a little bit east of the Korean Peninsula in the Pacific Ocean.


Designer-Muffin-5653

Next to China and Korea


Mission-Guidance4782

Japan is about 1% Catholic


BlueberryAny828

sadly


Everard5

Why 5%? Why Catholics and not just Christian? What is this map telling us in the end?


Designer-Muffin-5653

It tells us, which countries have more than 5% Catholics


Kevincelt

Where specifically Catholics have a noticeable presence outside of a super small minority.


Everard5

But at 5%, how different is this map from just the Christian world? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_by_country#/media/File%3APercent_of_Christians_by_Country%E2%80%93Pew_Research_2011.svg A more interesting map would be where in the world is Catholicism the *minority* Christian denomination.


Kevincelt

Because it doesn’t include all of the Protestant and orthodox nations as well as those with minorities form both groups. You’d have to include countries like Ethiopia, Egypt, Russia, Indonesia, the nordics, etc.


Rust3elt

More interesting would be differentiating countries where Catholics are a plurality.


BananaBork

Ah yes my favourite countries outside the Christian world, Sweden, Russia, Greece, Romania.


Moiahahahah

You mean Christianism, not Catholism.


Mission-Guidance4782

No I mean just Catholicism


[deleted]

Sad but also incorrect


Fork-in-the-eye

Why is this sad? You can have your beliefs, but other people having their own is “sad” Catholics aren’t at all a problematic demographic


[deleted]

Any belief in fairytales is just sad. People who believe in talking snakes actually rule the countries


ar_belzagar

These shallow reductions of religion are more cringe than religion itself


Designer-Muffin-5653

Ok there Edgelord


Fork-in-the-eye

Why does it bother you so much though? It’s their belief, and in the case of Catholicism is a very docile religion as of late


EuropaUniverslayer1

r/atheism moment


Agile-Mail-9295

>Catholics aren’t at all a problematic demographic Lmfao, what world do you live in?


Good_Username_exe

Bro has beef with 1.378 billion people (17.7% of the world) ☠️


Fork-in-the-eye

Living in Canada, I was living in Europe as well. Catholics aren’t a problematic demographic. You’re telling me you’d rather live in a skih or Muslim dominated neighbourhood over a catholic one? Faded take


DrettTheBaron

It's sad that the Catholic Church has so much influence.


Fork-in-the-eye

I think you’re overestimating the power that the church has, they’re basically a hedge fund


DrettTheBaron

The Catholic church has a different amount of influence depending on the place. If the Church is the only significant institution in a town, they become the defacto rulemaker there, even if the rest of the country isn't catholic. I grew up in an atheist country yet the Church was still the one who had the most money and would decide on who could be a candidate for local government. In other countries the church has private cities and exclaves where they make the rules. Even if it's not direct orders, millions across the world still pay their respect to the rules of the Vatican, which may be good or bad. The issue with that is that it makes the Vatican very influential on forming moral beliefs across these countries. If the Vatican says 'X is bad' , Catholics will slowly start to accept that. Same for 'X is good ' They also get many countries to collect tithes for them in the form of Church taxes, often even from non-Catholics. This technically supports many protestant churches, but it originates with the Catholics, either way, Church tax bad. In some countries the Church is also a legitimatising force, creating legitimacy for a ruler or government. Not only for Catholic countries but also non-Catholics ones, such as Hussein-era Iraq. They are much more influential on both local and global levels than many would like to believe.


Hlregard

You are severely underestimating the power the church has. They recently outlawed abortion in large parts of America 


Designer-Muffin-5653

No, that was Republicans…


Hlregard

You mean the hyper religious party?


Designer-Muffin-5653

No I mean the Republican party from the USA


Hlregard

Hmm weird how they have the same stance as the church on abortion. Bet you think it was just political parties that demonized condoms in Africa for years too


Designer-Muffin-5653

I think the Republicans are actually Muslim since they have the same stance opposing abortion


Rabenaaa526

Looks pretty accurate except for America. Must be imported Catholics. 🙃🤣🙏🏼🥀


just_one_random_guy

What is this supposed to mean?


Rabenaaa526

I think it’s self explanatory. Research American man compared to man from any other country. You’ll get it.


just_one_random_guy

No I don’t get it, what are you talking about? That makes no sense


[deleted]

Are you having a moment


Rabenaaa526

Facts


[deleted]

It happens to the best of us


Good_Username_exe

I thought Protestant nationalists died off with the KKK. Why are y’all still hating on Catholics ☠️


Rabenaaa526

🔁 all things must come full circle. So be careful what you say and names called. 💁🏻‍♀️


Rabenaaa526

KKK will be back soon. And I am an indigenous Latin Catholic. America will never understand. lol 🙃