The Catholic Church in Eswatini is part of the worldwide

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, under the spiritual leadership of the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

in Rome. The Catholic Church began in Eswatini in 1913 with the arrival of

Servite The Servite Order, officially known as the Order of Servants of Mary (; abbreviation: OSM), is one of the five original mendicant orders in the Roman Catholic Church. It includes several branches of friars (priests and brothers), contemplative nun ...

missionaries who began work in Mbabane. Two of Eswatini's bishops were born in Eswatini: MandleNkhosi Zwane and Ncamiso Ndlovu. The country forms a single diocese - the

Diocese of Manzini The Diocese of Manzini () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Eswatini. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Johannesburg in South Africa. Its episcopal see is lo ...

.Catholic Hierarchy website, Diocese of Manzini
/ref> In 2022, local religious leaders estimated that 20% of Eswatini's population is Catholic.US State Dept 2022 report
/ref> Other figures put the figure at 5.35%. Catholics and Culture website, retrieved 2023-08-08
/ref> In 2020, there were 33 priests and 54 nuns serving across 17 parishes.

References

{{Authority control

Eswatini Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where i ...

See also

References