News Sources: Islam Overtakes Roman Catholics

Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism to become the world's largest single religious denomination, according to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, compilier of the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican yearbook, figures for 2006 showed that Catholics accounted for 17.4 per cent of the world population while Muslims accounted for 19.2 per cent. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges and universities, including (click on names for contact information):

Selva Raj - Professor of Religious Studies, Albion College - Raj is an expert on religious leaders and Eastern religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as a scholar of Christian religions. His book, Popular Christianity in India: Riting Between the Lines, is in production. A colleague of the late Mother Theresa, Raj pinpoints characteristics of religious leaders and their teachings and determines the attraction by devotees/disciples.

David O'Brien - Director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, College of the Holy Cross - O'Brien is among the nation's top historians on American Catholicism. He is the author of numerous books on the subject, including From the Heart of the American Church: Catholic Higher Education and American Culture and The Renewal of American Catholicism.

William C. Placher - Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Wabash College - Placher is recognized as one of the great contemporary theologians. He is the author of The Domestication of Transcendence: Where Modern Thinking About God Went Wrong and A History of Christian Theology.