US Bishop Changes: Orange, Fort Worth, Rochester

[jwinch2]

Your right, our is tonight

Enjoy!

 

[iloveangels]

I have been around for more that 70 years and I have never heard of two or more dioceses being merged into a single diocese. I don’t think you have to be concerned about that happening…

I wouldn’t say it couldn’t happen. Some areas of the country are losing Catholics like crazy.

But on the other hand, it could be just rumors this time. Who knows?

I hope they get a really good house-cleaner in Rochester. They deserve it.

 

[JaMc]

Thanks for explaining that for everyone, ComputerGeek25! Yes, we very much need our own Bishop here in Rochester, particularly to clean up the mess this last one made. What mess? This one:

Category…** 1979**… 2012
Active diocesan priests…341. …90
Total priests…584 215
Priest ordinations…4 …0
Religious sisters…1,047 …443
Parishes… …161…105
Seminaries…2 …0
Catholic high schools… …9 …5
Catholic elementary schools…78…25
Total Catholic school students …76,724 …20,603
Infant baptisms …6,742 …2,646
Marriages …3,919 …1,009

Yes. Just look at those numbers. That’s the sad mess.

I don’t know anything about the outgoing Bishop there, but, in all fairness, if you compare the numbers in any diocese in the country between 1979 and now, you’d probably see a similar trend. It’s an overall societal problem, not necessarily the fault of any individual Bishop.

 

[jwinch2]

I don’t know anything about the outgoing Bishop there, but, in all fairness, if you compare the numbers in any diocese in the country between 1979 and now, you’d probably see a similar trend. It’s an overall societal problem, not necessarily the fault of any individual Bishop.

That’s a fair point.

The number of seminarians per-capita in recent years might be a better indicator along with things like numbers of confirmations per-capita, at assessing the health of particular diocese or the effectiveness of a bishop.

According to numbers I have seen, current diocese with a strong reputation for orthodoxy seem to have good numbers of seminarians as compared to diocese which, deservedly or otherwise, have a different reputation.

 

[sirach2v4]

I agree with you that some dioceses are just to big.

I grew in in the diocese of Richmond, VA and that is HUGE, and not just in space. Tons of Catholics line in the Greater Richmond area and even more in the VA Beach area.

Really pretty OT. I just was thinking that way as my wife and I recently took a trip into Rochester for a doctor’s appt. and I was surprised it wasn’t bigger. It’s a pretty small city.

I can’t comment on these geographic dioceses, but the question I have, so what? If the bishop sees his role as administrative, you might not even see him in 20 years.

If he’s a pastoral bishop, you might see him once every five years.

That is, unless your bishop has favorites, where he is seen every week, for example.

 

[jwinch2]

ocregister.com/articles/vann-379889-diocese-county.html

whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2012/12/release-crystal-live-from-orange.html

Even if four metropolitans took office on these shores during 2012, if you’re talking numbers, only tomorrow will American Catholicism’s Installation of the Year take place – with 1.3 million members, after all, the diocese of Orange is far larger than each of the four archdioceses to change hands this year… indeed, it’s bigger than three of the quartet (namely, Baltimore, San Francisco and Indianpolis) combined.

Already being greeted in the local press as akin to “a force of nature” – a reality that’s no secret to this readership – the festivities to welcome the 61 year-old “social butterfly” to California begin tonight at his soon-to-be seat, in the Arboretum of Crystal Cathedral, bought by the diocese for $57.5 million last year and, as Christ Cathedral, expected to be consecrated as Orange’s mother-church sometime around 2015.

The SoCal metropolitan and a close Vann friend, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles – who ordained his new suffragan as bishop of Fort Worth in 2005 – is slated to preach tonight’s Vespers service.