By Rodrigo Viga Gaier

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022 while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by statistics agency IBGE showed.

The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7% of the population, down from 65.1% or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census.

Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9% last year, up from 21.6% in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure on record.

The numbers may spell trouble to Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose Workers Party has historically struggled to gain ground

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