After an eight-year pause, the Holy See has resumed the public release of official statistics tracking aThe Holy See has resumed the publication of official attendance statistics for papal audiences and liturgical celebrations after an eight-year interruption, releasing figures that show marked shifts in participation during the past decade, according to a report by LifeSiteNews.
On December 30, 2025, the Prefecture of the Papal Household once again made public its annual data on the number of faithful, pilgrims, and visitors attending events presided over by the Pope in Vatican City. These annual tables had not been publicly available since 2017 following a decision taken during the pontificate of Pope Francis, after growing public controversy over declining attendance figures, LifeSiteNews reports.
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LifeSiteNews states that the statistics cover general and jubilee audiences, special audiences, liturgical celebrations, and the recitation of the Angelus. The recently published data allow for comparisons across different pontificates — a practice that had been suspended for nearly a decade.
According to LifeSiteNews, the figures show that in 2013, the year of Pope Francis’ election, total attendance at papal events was nearly 7 million. That number declined to just over 6.6 million in 2014. In subsequent years, the drop accelerated: attendance fell to approximately 3.2 million in 2015 and to about 2.7 million in 2017, the last year for which figures were previously published.
Italian blog Messainlatino.it — cited by LifeSiteNews — noted the renewed release of the figures and asked, “Why were they not published for eight years?” The blog added that “not only our Roman sources, but even a simple viewing of the footage shows the dramatic decline in attendance at Pope Francis’ audiences,” according to LifeSiteNews.
LifeSiteNews also reports that the Italian outlet Open — another source referenced in the Vatican’s renewed tables — indicated that the final years of Pope Francis’ pontificate saw the lowest attendance levels recorded. Open estimated that for both 2023 and 2024, about 1.7 million faithful attended papal events each year. “With Pope Benedict, we never saw the striking figures recorded under Francis, but neither did we witness the collapse of these past few years, and in any case the numbers never fell below 2 million,” Open commented on the eve of Pope Leo’s election.
According to LifeSiteNews, the Prefecture of the Papal Household’s recent figures also cover the period up to Pope Francis’ hospitalization on February 14, 2025. “Attendance figures up to the hospitalisation of Pope Francis … amounted to more than 250,000 participations,” LifeSiteNews reports, citing Vatican News. Following the election of Pope Leo XIV in May, attendance reportedly increased significantly, approaching 3 million participations.
For the full calendar year 2025, the Holy See reported a total of 3,176,620 participations at papal audiences and liturgical celebrations in Vatican City. LifeSiteNews notes these figures represent cumulative participations at events rather than counts of individual persons.
The reinstatement of these annual attendance statistics marks a return to a Vatican tradition that provides measurable insight into the participation of the faithful at the heart of the Church’s public worship, LifeSiteNews concludes.
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