Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Vocation Trends


The December 2007 issue of "The Catholic World Report" magazine has the cover story of "By the Numbers: The Best and Worst US Diocese for Vocations". The following are top and bottom 20 diocese in the USA.

The top 20 Diocese in the United States for seminarians to Catholic population:

1. Lincoln ( 38/93,988)
2. Juneau (2/5473)
3. Tulsa (17/55,462)
4. Rapid City (7/25,729)
5. Cheyenne (13/49,121)
6. Duluth (18/68,037)
7. Peoria (43/174,008)
8. Denver (93/384,611)
9. Wichita (28/120,527)
10. Lexington (11/48,070)
11. Tyler (14/61,390)
12. Bismarck (14/62,898)
13. Fargo (18/82,891)
14. Nashville (15/69,400)
15. Spokane (21/97,655)
16. Pensacola-Tallahassee (14/65,209)
17. Memphis (14/67,342)
18. Mobile (14/67,434)
19. Yakima (16/77,149)
20. Sioux City (17/87,528)

The bottom 20 Diocese in the United States for seminarians to Catholic population:

157. Monterey (5/195,200)
158. Reno (3/121,347)
159. San Bernadino (28/1,146,960)
160. Detroit (31/1,286,985)
161. Syracuse (8/345,736)
162. Boston (39/1,845,846)
163. Rockville Centre (28/1,431,774)
164. Galveston-Houston (29/1,495,030)
165. San Antonio (13/673,526)
166. Santa Rosa (3/159,763)
167. Rochester (6/341,772)
168. El Paso (11/656,035)
169. Hartford (10/668,231)
170. New York (37/2,542,432)
171. Los Angeles (60/4,448,763)
172. Laredo (3/229,141)
173. Las Vegas (7/539,953)
174. Metuchen (7/603,214)
175. Honolulu (1/143,240)
176. San Diego (5/950,743)

While these numbers are not everything, they do indicate trends and can show us where the vocational fruitfulness is most apparent. There are a lot of hopeful signs that things are improving for the Church. Perhaps we have turned that corner on vocations and will now see a steady increase that will last? We can always hope... and pray!

2 comments:

Sister Brittany said...

Hmmm... interesting. Curious to note that among the top 20 are three that I know for sure are VERY conservative, in which many seminarians wear the cassock and embrace other such trappings of pre-vat II seminary spirituality/function.

I wonder what the perseverance rate is.

Do we have any data on SDB vocations and where they are coming from in the US? I know we have 2 more that are entering from IL this coming year (I am from IL) for the FMAs... and Tampa has another one.

Padre Steve said...

Let's see... Next year so far there are: 1 from New Orleans, 1 from New York, 1 from Texas, 1 from Cleveland, and 1 from New Jersey. There are others interested from Illinois, Michigan, Atlanta, Upstate New York, Connecticut... We have had visitors from Colorado, Florida... all over. Right now our guys are from Rhode Island, 2 from Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Massachusetts, 3 from New York and one from LA of the California Province. So pretty mixed bag. There seems to be a lot of interest from the Midwest and South. The interest we receive from the Northeast are generally from our works. The good news is that there seems to be more visitors this year and more guys moving forward. Let's keep praying! God bless! Keep smiling! Padre