The U.S. bishops meet in San Antonio a week from tomorrow, and our staff will be on the ground a couple days before that. In the meantime, our media backgrounder on U.S. church statistics has gone to the printers, and the Congregation for Bishops in Rome keeps cranking out bishops' appointments. We'll see just how much more dated our statistics are by then.
Last time, I reported the following ...
Currently, 5 dioceses are vacant (sede vacante):
Cheyenne
Duluth
Milwaukee
Ogdensburg
Owensboro
There are 425 active and retired Catholic bishops in the United States:
258 Active Bishops:
5 Cardinal Archbishops
28 Archbishops
1 Coadjutor Archbishop
155 Diocesan Bishops
0 Coadjutor Bishops
69 Auxiliary Bishops
167 Retired Bishops:
7 retired Cardinal Archbishops
20 retired Archbishops
91 retired Diocesan Bishops
49 retired Auxiliary Bishops
Well, a lot has happened in three weeks. Chronologically speaking, on May 27, the pope accepted the resignation of the Bishop Edward Cullen of Allentown, Pa., and appointed Msgr. John Barres, up to that point the chancellor of the Diocese of Wilmington, as Cullen's successor. The pope also named Father Lee Piche as a new auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
On June 3, the pope accepted the resignation of the then-serving-longest-past-retirement-age bishop in the U.S., Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha and named Bishop George Lucas (not to be confused with the Star Wars creator) of Springfield in Illinois as his successor.
Finally, yesterday, the pope named the vicar for priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Msgr. Timothy Senior, an auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese. (This appointment, as has been noted elsewhere, brings the number of Philly auxiliaries back up to four in the wake of last month's appointment of Bishop Joseph Cistone to Saginaw, Mich.)
So, crunching and pushing and pulling the national numbers once again, this swath of appointments raises the number of bishops nationwide by three, nets a gain of one active bishop, raises the number of retired bishops overall by two, raises the number of retired archbishops by one, retired diocesan bishops by one, nets zero in the number of active archbishops, reducese the number of active diocesan bishops by one, raises the number of active auxiliaries by two, and even opens up a vacant diocese.
Or to illustrate it in a less headache-inducing manner, I believe that leaves today's statistics as follows ...
Currently, 6 dioceses are vacant (sede vacante):
Cheyenne
Duluth
Milwaukee
Ogdensburg
Owensboro
Springfield in Illinois
There are 428 active and retired Catholic bishops in the United States:
259 Active Bishops:
5 Cardinal Archbishops
28 Archbishops
1 Coadjutor Archbishop
154 Diocesan Bishops
0 Coadjutor Bishops
71 Auxiliary Bishops
169 Retired Bishops:
7 retired Cardinal Archbishops
21 retired Archbishops
92 retired Diocesan Bishops
49 retired Auxiliary Bishops
Of course, with a week till the meeting, media may want to keep checking back for the latest numbers.
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1 comment:
Isn't your job made even more complicated by the fact that an elected diocesan administrator in a vacant see gets a deliberative vote in most USCCB actions? So you have to keep track of them too?
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