The 20 dioceses with the lowest ratio of diocesan seminarians to Catholics in 2006—starting with the bottom-ranked diocese—were San Diego, Honolulu, Metuchen, Las Vegas, Laredo, Los Angeles, New York, Hartford, El Paso, Rochester, Santa Rosa, San Antonio, Galveston-Houston, Rockville Centre, Boston, Syracuse, Detroit, San Bernardino, Reno, and Monterey.
But surprisingly, the Diocese of Covington, just across the river from my Cincinnati home, is among the dioceses with the steepest rise in vocations, an increase the report links to the arrival of Bishop Roger Foys. I'll wager that Cincinnati, not mentioned in the report, will be in this category post-2009 -- perhaps with the arrival of Archbishop Blair. ;-)
On the other hand, the dozen dioceses whose rankings rose the most steeply between 2003 and 2006 were Juneau, Shreveport, Madison, Paterson, Pueblo, Saginaw, Memphis, Crookston, Colorado Springs, Covington, St. Paul-Minneapolis, Kansas City-St. Joseph, and Toledo. In several cases, the increase in the number of seminarians coincided with the arrival of a new bishop: Bishop Robert Morlino in Madison, Bishop Arthur Serratelli in Paterson, Bishop Robert Carlson in Saginaw, Bishop Michael Sheridan in Colorado Springs, Bishop Roger Foys in Covington, Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City-St. Joseph, and Bishop Leonard Blair in Toledo.
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22 comments:
Keep your hands off my Bishop!
;-)
"... the increase in the number of seminarians coincided with the arrival of a new bishop: Bishop Robert Morlino in Madison, Bishop Arthur Serratelli in Paterson, Bishop Robert Carlson in Saginaw, Bishop Michael Sheridan in Colorado Springs, Bishop Roger Foys in Covington, Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City-St. Joseph, and Bishop Leonard Blair in Toledo."
But what are the actual numbers? Percentages can be deceiving. If a diocese has 10 seminarians and gets 10 more, that's a 100% increase. But if it has 30 and gets 10 more, the same number isn't a very impressive percentage. So I'd like to know the numbers, not just the percentages.
Gail Finke
"Sister Kathy Bryant, R.S.C., the vocation director and director of seminarians for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, correlates the archdiocese's relatively low number of seminarians to its standards for accepting them...."
Whew--glad it doesn't have anything to do with Barney Masses...
So, where did you get this yakkity-yak about Blair getting on I-75 South and not stopping till he got to the Ohio River?
Well???
Shreveport, LA--has an awesome young parochial vicar at the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans, he started a Chant Schola. Wish I were still there.
So, where did you get this yakkity-yak about Blair getting on I-75 South and not stopping till he got to the Ohio River?
It's mere speculation, David. If the Holy Father wants to select someone from the region (since it's likely he'll go outside the archdiocese), Blair would make sense. But then so would Gainer or Foys.
Dale says Bishop Carlson brought the seminarians in his suitcase. Or he has some trick to grow them like Sea-Monkeys.
FWIW.
Internal candidates made bishop:
Fenwick* - coterminous with creation of the diocese
Purcell* - sent here without prior experience in the hierarchy
Pilarczyk
True external candidates:
Elder (Natchez, MS)
McNicholas (Duluth, MN)
Alter (Toledo, OH)
Bernardin (Aux. in Atlanta, GA)
Candidates with experience in the diocese but sent off before coming back:
Moeller (Columbus, OH)
Leibold (Evansville, IN)
Maes of Covington nearly beat out Moeller around the turn of the last century. McNicholas was second choice in the 1920s after the first choice Chartrand of Indy (I think) was named and then managed to back out of it.
It would interesting to run the numbers based on the demographics of the various diocese, especially the number of Catholic men between the ages of 18-45 or so.
The big diocese have always had low per capita numbers even in the 'glory days.' They made it up with Irish and Italian immigrants.
David,
If I remember correctionly, I think Altar was an auxiliary bishop here in Cincinnati before going to Toledo, but I could be wrong. Wait, I got it around here somewhere.... Nope, wrong, was a priest from Toledo and originally made a bishop there.
Elder was the only one who would come here after the bank collapse of Purcell.
Chartrand of Indy (I think)
For future reference it was Chatard.
Pilarcyzk was also native to this archdiocese, being appointed its auxiliary bishop by Bernardin in 1971(?). Liebold followed Alter as Archbishop, coming from Toledo.
How do you guys know all these bishop facts? I didn't even know that Fenwick and Alter were names of bishops until... I guess a couple of years ago. And of course we learned a lot more about Gnadenhutten than the archdiocese in Ohio history class in public school.
I always thought our founding bishop must have been Bishop Ford, because that was the name of our parish hall. Come to find out last year, he suffered over in China! I guess the parochial school kids of the future will think all the Stang things are named after the Rev. Ivan Stang. (The Church of the Subgenius guy.)
Sigh. I know I learned something in Catholic school, but sometimes it's hard to remember that.
Maureen:
I grew up in the Cincinnati area, and lived there a long time before coming to DC in 1980. Most of my account is what I remember as a boy. Leibold was my confirmation bishop in 1965, and Pilarcyzk was our associate pastor in 1968 or '69. He came back to visit us after he was made auxiliary.
Some things are not hard to remember, I guess.
If you ever want to know anything about the hierarchy, head over to www.catholic-hierarchy.org.
And Indy actually had a Chatard and a Chartrand and they were back to back bishops. In fact Indy had a whole string of French bishops.
Elder is a fascinating figure and probably worth a biography in his own right, but Purcell still haunts this diocese. I guess a 100+ years just isn't that long in a 2000 thousand year old church. I wonder if there is some diocese in Europe where they look back to some bishop in like the 12th century that has shaped the direction of diocese since then for good or ill.
When Bishop Carlson came to Saginaw, there were 3 seminarians. Last I heard, about 6-9 months ago, there were 18. He is a dynamic speaker who gave then-Senate Leader Tom Dacshle the ol' what-for when he was bishop in South Dakota. I live in the Archdiocese of Detroit, which is improving but still has a long ways to go.
And if Bishop Blair in Toledo is as good as he seems to be, I just might chaffeur him north on I-75 when Cardinal Maida retires!! ;-)
Late to the conversation: Fenwick was a Domincian and is buried somewhere on the West side(apparently in a not too nice of a neighborhood)...i think the O.P.'s would like to move his body somewhere more prominent...but no one really wants to make an issue of it.
Is Fenwick buried in that cemetery along West 8th Street? I seem to recall that was a Catholic cemetery, but it's been a while since I've been over that way.
Blair came from Detroit, so it wouldn't be a big step back across the state line.
David;
Could you expand on your comment about Purcell? Other than a High school was named after him, I know nothing about his history.
John Kennedy
I think Leibold came back to Cinci from Evansville.
Phil
John Kennedy,
Here is a very nice bio of Bishop Purcell:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12570a.htm
A good bricks-and-mortar guy, and a fearless debater. Needed a bookkeeper.
John Murray
One guess I'd make, based on location, is that several of the low-number dioceses have high Hispanic populations. According to recent studies, the Hispanic population is why the Church isn't losing numbers in the US. According to educational/demographic information, there are fewer young Hispanic men educationally eligible to study for the priesthood than there are Anglos in that position.
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