The Bosnia and Herzegovina Bishops Conference earlier this month published consolidated data, which was collected during the last blessing of homes and refers to the situation in early 2024, and which shows that in all three Roman Catholic dioceses in the country there were 331,266 Catholics.

Most of them, 181,546, were registered in the Diocese of Mostar, while in the territorially biggest diocese, Sarajevo, there were 119,833 Catholics.

In the Diocese of Banja Luka, whose Catholic community was hit hardest by the war, there were only 29,927 Catholics in late 2023.

The number of baptisms was higher than the number of deaths only in the Diocese of Mostar, but even there the natural increase was modest, with only 229 more baptisms than deaths.

In the Diocese of Sarajevo there were 1,800 more deaths than baptisms, and in Banja Luka, there were 286 more deaths than baptisms.

Those familiar with the situation in the country warn that church statistics should be taken with some reservations because sometimes during house blessings, persons who do not really live in their home parishes but only visit them occasionally, are also listed at the request of their families.

The trend of gradual decline in the number of BiH Catholics has been present for almost two decades, the exception being years when mild demographic recovery was reported.

In 1996, there were 424,915 Catholics in BiH and their number reached its maximum in 2003, when 464, 821 Catholics were registered.

After that year, the gradual decrease in their number started, with the most dramatic losses having been reported in 2013, when 11,000 Catholics “disappeared” over a period of one year, and in 2015, when there were as many as 14,500 fewer Catholics compared to 2014.

In the subsequent years, the number of Catholics dropped by an average of 2,000 to 3,000 on an annual basis.

Compared to the situation in 2022, the number of Catholics in 2023 was down by 2,524 while compared to 2021 it was down by 10,849.

Population statistics for BiH, not including church statistics, are mostly outdated and unreliable. The last population census in the country was conducted in 2013 and due to political disputes, a new one is not likely to be held soon.

According to the 2013 census, BiH had a population of slightly more than 3.5 million – slightly more than 544,000 Croats, slightly more than 1.7 million Bosniaks and slightly more than one million Serbs.

Statisticians estimate that BiH, faced with an unstable political situation and a large population outflow, currently does not have more than 2.9 million inhabitants, with Croat HDZ BiH party leader Dragan Covic presenting a pessimistic estimate in November 2023, saying that the actual number of inhabitants was barely two million.