The State of the Catholic Church in America, Diocese by Diocese

The February 2007 issue of Crisis Magazine has an article entitled The State of the Catholic Church in America, Diocese by Diocese. It is an evaluation/analysis of the current health of the various Latin rite dioceses of the Catholic Church in America. The article starts out with a very interesting question that sets the tone & direction of the analysis, "Does the bishop matter?" Then the article leaps right into its pair of conclusions. "The first is that there is no problem ailing the Catholic Church in America that is no being addressed successfully in some place, and typically in multiple places. Second, there is a cadre of bishops, invisible to the national media, largely unknown outside of their dioceses, absent from Washington political circles, who are truly unsung heros of the Church, presiding over vibrant communitites, building the Church, and effectively proclaiming the Faith."

"But does a particular bishop really affect, for better or ill, the health of the Church in his see?" To answer this it considers whether variations in the vitality of the American dioceses can be detected & if so to what extent is that attributable to the bishop. What is his role? Theycriteria to define the role was taken from the 3rd chapter of Lumen Gentium.

The evaluation is based on 3 criteria where there was data readily available for the authors to measure. They were: 1) Changes in the active presbyterate from 1995-2005, 2) Ordinations, 2005 & 3) Rate of adults received into the Church. The data was culled from the information found in The Official Catholic Directory published by P. J. Kenedy and Sons for the years 1995 & 2005. To prevent discrimination against smaller parishes this data was measured as a percentage in each case, percentage of change in # of active priests, newly ordained as a percentage of the total active presbyterate, & adult receptions as a percentage of total adherants. (Note the 1995 data is a composite of the data from 1985-1995.)

The article does admit that this analysis does have its defects, thus making it "at best, an approximation of the reality we seek to represent." It admits to the limitations & constraints that the available data puts on it. To arrive at its composite rating of the dioceses each diocese was 1st ranked individually in each of the 3 above areas, 1 being best, 176 worst. Then the 3 individual rankings were added together. Ideally, the best total score would be a 3. It also compares the change in rank from 1995 to 2005. In this 10 year data comparison it fails to take into account these factors, was there a change in who the bishop of the diocese & when did that change take place. So, if a new bishop recently took over a diocese, then he can't be credited with the improvement or decline, his predecssor deserves the credit/blame. A good example of this is the Alexandria & Houma-Thibodaux LA dioceses. Alexandria went from 55th to 4th. For 8 of those 10 yrs Bishop Sam Jacobs was in charge. For the last 2 years he has been the ordinary of the Houma-Thibodaux diocese. That diocese went from 42nd to 150th. I suspect that under Bishop Jacobs that down the road the rank of the Houma-Thibodaux diocese will see a change for the better. (full disclosure requires me to admit that several years ago I did meet & get a chance to talk with Bishop Jacobs when he spoke at a Day of Renewal put on by the local charismatic prayer group.)

The article also looks at variations based on region the diocese is located in, change in the population of & the size of the diocese. But even with the above external factors they come to the conclusion that the bishop still does have a great deal of influence. They talked to officials in a sample of the top dioceses. They found "striking commonalities" in the bishops. The "most striking similarity" is that this bishops "attribute their success to the Holy Spirit". Succesful bishops were also ones that were "joyful", assumed "pesonal responsibility for the outcomes that are their priorities" & were "unwilling to aquiesce to decline". The article also say the diocesan website as a "significant insight into the personality of the dioceses". This is something that I have found personally true.

The article ends up on a hopeful note for the future. A note that acknowledges that with the right person as bishop, 1 with the right profile (read gifts/charisms discerned before appointment) then "there is no challenge that the Church faces that cannot be confronted".

So, who are the top dioceses in the USA? Here are the top 10:

1. Knoxville TN
2. Savannah GA
3. Kalamazoo MI
4. Alexandria LA
5. Pensacola-Tallahassee FL
6. Santa Fe NM*
7. Birmingham AL
8. Anchorage AK*
9. Biloxi MS
10. Lansing MI

The bottom 5 are:

172. Albany NY

173. Metuchen NJ

174. Rochester NY

175. Rockville Center NY

176. Hartford CT*

* Archdiocese

Unfortunately (but not surprizingly, I'm sorry to say) the archdiocese I belong to, Dubuque IA is ranked 159 & is thus in the bottom 20. But it is an improvement from the 1995 ranking of 173.

There is a 2nd article with this one entitled What Does the Study Tell Us? Seven Prominent Catholics Respond. In it Crisis Magazine asked 7 Catholics to give their conclusions about the data. the people contacted include Deal W. Hudson & the Most Reverend Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D. bishop of the #1 diocese, Knoxville TN.