Abstract

Dixon, Robert; Reid, Stephen Catholics are the largest religious group in Australia. According to the 2011 Australian Census, Catholics made up just over a quarter of the Australian population: there were 5,439,268 Catholics in a total Australian population of 21,507,719. In the five years between the 2006 and 2011 Censuses, the number of Catholics increased by over 312,000, or 6.1 per cent. During the same period, the total Australian population increased by 8.3 per cent. Catholics have continued to grow in numbers at every census, but their percentage in the Australian population has been declining slowly since the peak of 27.3 per cent in 1991