Brazil is the world's largest Roman Catholic country, but its Catholic population continues to decline while evangelical Christians and those with no religion carry on rising, news census data reveals.

The latest census statistics released by the IBGE agency on June 6 showed that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent, or 105.4 million, recorded in the 2010 census.

At the same time, the proportion of Protestant Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million, the highest figure on record, Premier Christian News noted.

From 2010 to 2022, according to data from the population Census, there was a drop in the percentage of Roman Catholics by 8.4 percentage points from 2010.

Catholics were 65.1 percent of the population aged 10 and over, while persons with no religion corresponded to 7.9 percent of the informants.

The proportion of Protestants rose by 5.2 percent and of persons with no religion, by 1.4 percent.

Spiritualism, at 1.8 percent%) dropped 0.3 p.p. against 2010 (2.2%). Umbanda and candomblé, on the other hand, went from 0.3% in 2010 to 1.0% in 2022, an increase of 0.7 p.p.

In 2022, Catholicism was the leading religion in all major regions of Brazil, with the highest concentrations in the northeast (63.9 percent) and the south (62.4 percent).

A bigger proportion of Protestants was found in the north (36.8 percent) and in the central west (31.4 percent.)

Although Roman Catholics were the majority in all the age groups, the proportion of this group changed between 52.0 percentin the group aged 10 to 14 and 72.0 percent among persons aged 80 and over.

In 2022, Catholicism was predominant in all the categories of color or race, having reached 60.2 percent among white persons.

Indigenous persons had the biggest proportion of Protestants (32.2 percent).

The largest proportions of spiritualists (3.2 percent), individuals with other religions (13.6 percent), and those with no religion (16.2 percent) were found among Asians.

The new census data also revealed that the number of Brazilians who declare to have no religion rose to 9.3 percent from 7.9 percent, totalling 16.4 million people.

Afro-Brazilian religions, such as Umbanda and Candomble, also gained ground, with the number of followers increasing from to 1 percent from 0.3 percent