Muslim leaders write to Pope asking interfaith understanding

The Vatican acknowledged that Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion.

Vittorio Formenti, who compiles the Vatican's yearbook, said that Roman Catholics account for 17.4% of the world population - a stable percentage - while Muslims are on the rise at 19.2%.

Mr Formenti, in comments to Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, said the data referred to 2006.

Applying the percentages to the 2006 world population of about 6.5 billion, Muslims would have made up 1.25 billion of the total, Catholics 1.13 billion and all Christians 2.15 billion.

The numbers were published as a dialogue begins between Muslims and the Vatican to try to patch up a series of differences, starting in 2006 when Pope Benedict gave a speech in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor claiming that Islam was inherently violent.