By the Numbers: The Best and Worst US Diocese for Vocations 2007

The December 2007 issue of "The Catholic World Report" magazine is out, and the cover story is "By the Numbers: The Best and Worst US Diocese for Vocations". While I can't get the story online yet, I'll give you the top and bottom 20.

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)

To give you an idea how far out in front the Diocese of Lincoln is - the Diocese of Raleigh (#76 of 176, with 14 seminarians to 186,307 Catholics) would have to go from 14 seminarians to 103 to be tied with Lincoln for first, an increase of 89 seminarians. I'm going to have to work harder! Although, these figures are based on last falls data; we now have 20 seminarians to 250,000 Catholics.