Is Catholic faith waning? A slight drop in pilgrims to Rome is nothing to worry about

The number of Catholic pilgrims who have traveled to Rome to join Pope Francis in prayer, a liturgy or an audience have declined in 2014, the Vatican has reported.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Though more than 5.9 million pilgrims did travel to Vatican City in 2014, that is down from the 6.6 million visitors who went during the first 10 months of Francis' time as Pope in 2013.

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These numbers come from the Prefecture of the Papal Household, the Vatican office which is in charge of coordinating the audiences and distributing tickets to papal audiences and liturgies. In 2014, only 5,916,800 people attended papal events at the Vatican.

During 2014, nearly 1.20 million people were in attendance at Pope Francis' weekly general audiences, and another 567,000 participated in special group audiences.

Another 1.1 million people participated in the papal liturgies held at St. Peter's Square or St. Peter's Basilica. Another three million attended Francis' special prayers.

However, these figures do not include the number of pilgrims who traveled to Rome or nearby Italian dioceses for papal events where Francis led or was in attendance, nor does it reflect those who attended foreign trips where Francis conducted such services.

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