E/CN.4/2000/65 page 30 unanswered. The Special Rapporteur has continued his mission follow-up procedure, established in 1996, with which most States have cooperated, although the replies of Iran, Germany and Australia are still pending. 116. This year, the Special Rapporteur decided that in addition to his “traditional” visits, he would visit the major religious communities in order to establish a direct dialogue on the subject of the 1981 Declaration and on all issues relating to freedom of religion or belief and to consider solutions to whatever problems of intolerance and discrimination might arise. In September 1999, the Special Rapporteur visited the Holy See. IV. VISIT TO THE HOLY SEE 117. From 1 to 3 September 1999, the Special Rapporteur visited the Holy See for an audience with the Holy Father and a series of consultations with the Secretariat of State, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, and with Cardinal Achille Silvestrini in charge of Catholic churches of the Eastern Rite. This altogether untypical visit differed from previous missions undertaken by the Special Rapporteur insofar as it was one of several consultations of representatives of the main religions. While the Holy See is of course a State under international law, it is also the representative of Catholicism, one of the main religions in the world (see statistics below). The Special Rapporteur opted for this new type of visit (without excluding the continuation of traditional missions) in order to achieve and to disseminate a better understanding of religious approaches to the liberty of religion and belief, and to gain experience related to inter-community relations in the area of religion and belief, especially from the angle of inter-religious dialogue. Apart from education, inter-religious dialogue constitutes one of the principal means of preventing intolerance and discrimination based on religion and belief. This is why the report on this visit considers inter-community relations in the area of religion and belief in some detail, while giving due consideration to topics related to international and national law in the area of freedom of religion, to the Vatican’s relations with States and to matters concerning women, the family and education. A. Statistical data 118. According to the 1997 Statistical Yearbook of the Catholic Church (published by the Church’s Central Office of Statistics), at 30 June 1997, baptised Catholics accounted for 1,005,254,000 of a total of 5,820,767,000 inhabitants in the world. This figure does not include the Catholic population estimated at 4,600,000, of countries which, owing to their current situation, are not covered in the survey. The distribution of the Catholic population differs considerably from one country to another and one continent to another. The Americas have the greatest concentration, with 62.9 Catholics for every 100 inhabitants, followed by Europe with 41.4 per cent and Oceania with 27.5 per cent. Asia has the lowest Catholic population, with 3 per cent. 119. At 31 December 1997, there were 2,789 ecclesiastical constituencies (i.e. dioceses, including the sees of patriarchs, metropolitans, archbishops and bishops, and territories,