Talk:List of Catholic bishops in the United States

Actually list the bishops
As we already have a List of the Catholic dioceses of the United States, which this artilce mostly duplicates. I think this page should list the current ordinaries of the jurisdictions. I've done this already for the province of San Francisco. Anyone else think this would be good to expand to the other areas, or should we perhaps consider merging the two lists. Gentgeen 05:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Makes sense to merge them.


 * Some dioceses, as well as archdioceses have listed "emeritus" bishops and archbishops, that is, the past, retired bishop. Why? I think this should only list the incumbent. The article on the diocese/archdiocese can list predecessors. Student7 21:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I completely disagree. Just becase they are Emeritus, does not mean that they are "dead."  The still are "active" bishops in the diocese.  I do agree, that if the bishop has been moved to another diocese then they should not be listed in an old diocese. For example, in the American diocese of Philadelphia, Cardinal Bevillaqua is Archbishop Emeritus of the diocese; however, he is still listed in the hierarchy of the diocese because he is the ranking Cardinal. While he is no longer the "head," he is in a place of respect. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jlivewell (talk • contribs) 13:38, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Added John Elya, Emeritus Eparch of Newton of the Melkites Irish Melkite (talk) 04:37, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

But don't delete their sees!
Many of the recent edits have added the names of the bishops, but deleted their sees. For example, this:

 *Archbishop of Dubuque 

was replaced with this:

 *Jerome Hanus 

I think it would be more useful if the entry had been changed to:

 *Jerome Hanus, Archbishop of Dubuque 

That way, no information is lost. Also, the page is easier to maintain, because if Bishop retires, his line on the list just becomes false, but if his diocese is mentioned then people can still follow the link there. - Lawrence King 22:37, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Count of Archbishops
I didn't want to change the count which seems off to me. Someone is undoubtedly more familiar that I. The header says 32 archbishops. Except for Samoa, nearly every province has an archbishop heading it, so there ought to be quite a few more than 32 I would think. Student7 11:46, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Metro archbishops who are cardinals
Curr rev says: "As of March 2007, nine of these metropolitans have been designated Cardinals ...." This needs to be updated and changed to "June 2009" and "five", because four of them have retired since 3/07, i.e., Balt (Card. Keeler), Det (Card. Maida), NY (Card. Egan), & Wash (Card. McCarrick). Thus, the remaining "five" non-retired metro abps who are cardinals are the abps of Boston, Chicago, Galv-Hous, L.A., & Phila. Eagle4000 (talk) 21:16, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Number of Latin dioceses & number of Eastern Cath. dioc's
Curr rev says: "The Roman Catholic Church in the United States comprises 195 dioceses led by residential bishops. ....  {2nd para} In addition to the 195 dioceses, there are several other dioceses in the nation's overseas dependencies. There are also dioceses and eparchies of the Eastern Catholic Churches. A special archdiocese was created by the Vatican for the United States military." The use of the words "in addition" and "also" incorrectly imply that the "195" does not include the Eastern Catholic dioceses or the military diocese.

I assume that the number "195" is taken from the page on Roman Catholic Church in the United States. According to that page, however, the "195" includes Eastern Catholic eparchies/dioceses. It says: "In the United States, there are 195 archdioceses and dioceses: 145 Latin Catholic dioceses / 33 Latin Catholic archdioceses / 15 Eastern Catholic dioceses / 2 Eastern Catholic archdioceses".

RECOMMENDATION: On this page (List of Bps in the US), the 2nd paragraph should be changed to: "The 195 dioceses consist of: 32 Latin Catholic metropolitan archdioceses, 1 Latin Catholic archdiocese for the military services, 145 Latin Catholic dioceses, 2 Eastern Catholic metropolitan archdioceses, and 15 Eastern Catholic dioceses." Eagle4000 (talk) 21:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Historical list
I've been working up an historical list of Catholic bishops in the United States, similar to this list of Episcopal bishops. It's in my user sandbox for now, but I plan to move it to article space soon. I thought it might be of interest to editors of this page. I'd welcome any comments you have on at my talk page. --Coemgenus (talk) 15:43, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The draft in your user sandbox looks great. I have a couple questions. (1) What do the Roman numerals I through V mean (in the "Diocese" column)? (2) What title are you thinking of using for the article? Kudos for all the work you've put into this. Eagle4000 (talk) 03:52, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The numbers are the sequence of bishops in that diocese -- e.g., the fifth bishop of Detroit gets listed as "V Detroit". I should work that into the opening paragraphs.  I was thinking of Historical list of Catholic bishops in the United States for the title, but I'm certainly willing to consider other ideas.  --12:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Harrisburg PA vacant see
You may want to change Harrisburg PA (province of Philadelphia) to a vacant see - Bishop McFadden died in May - his own page and the page for the diocese already show that. Thank you, David Adamson Ae1083t (talk) 19:52, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Misdirected
Under the Province of Detroit, when I click on Bishop Michael Byrnes, I get redirected to a Michael J. Byrnes, an author of novels. Musicwriter (talk) 19:33, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I repair the link-Michael J. Byrnes-that should help-thanks-RFD (talk) 19:46, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I started an article about Bishop Michael J. Byrnes-thanks-RFD (talk) 23:38, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Bishop already installed in St. Cloud
Hi - Bishop Kettler was installed in St. Cloud (province of Saint Paul - Minneapolis) on 11/7. You could change him from bishop-elect to bishop. Thank you. David Adamson Ae1083t (talk) 15:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Elizium23 (talk) 15:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Andrew Cozzens is an auxiliary bishop in St. Paul
on December 9 Andrew Cozzens was ordained and installed as an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. You could add him to this page. Thank you, David Adamson Ae1083t (talk) 03:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svgDone Dhpage (talk) 04:00, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Bishop Gainer moved from Lexington to Harrisburg
Bishop Gainer transferred in March from Lexington in the province of Louisville to Harrisburg in the province of Philadelphia. So Harrisburg is no longer vacant, and Lexington is vacant. Also, Cozzens is now an auxiliary bishop in Saint Paul. Thank you, David Adamson Ae1083t (talk) 18:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svgDone Dhpage (talk) 04:04, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Toledo vacant
Bishop Blair of Toledo in the province of Cincinnati transferred a while ago to become Archbishop of Hartford. You have him listed in both places. I think Toledo is vacant. Thank you, David Adamson Ae1083t (talk) 13:22, 10 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svgDone Dhpage (talk) 03:24, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Delete deceased from Bishops Emeritus section?
Greetings, Today I noticed a recently deceased bishop on this list. There is nothing in this section's content to indicate if the list is living, retired only. Before removing from the list, I thought to ask here first. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 15:48, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Joe, your are correct, they are deleted here. This is a list of living people. The deceased prelates' history is preserved in their own WP biographical articles and WP articles about their sees. Thank you. Dhpage (talk) 02:54, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Joe, that was my intention when I redid the page, to have the living, retired bishops in a table. If you know of any who have passed away, please, by all means delete them from the list. Same holds true for any who have recently retired, please move them to the emeritus table. I was using the USCCB website as my guide, but it appears to me that it takes them awhile to update their info. Thanks for the help. On another note, are you related to Bishop Hebda of Newark? Roberto221 (talk) 10:16, 5 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Today, for emeritus table, I added editor notes about adding retired bishops & delete those who are deceased. In addition, I deleted recently deceased Bishop Fliss (named in edit summary). ✅


 * For Bishop Bernard Hebda I have placed a COI (not related) notice on that article's talk page. Occasionally I have checked his article just because of the common last name. I saw the announcement that he is also assigned as temporary Admin for St.Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese. Must be quite the challenge-double duties.


 * BTW, thanks for revising this article. The new table is a lot easier to view, much less cluttered. Cheers! JoeHebda (talk) 12:49, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Titular Bishops
Can anybody answer this question for me:

Once an Auxiliary bishop retires because he has reached the retirement age, is he still the titular bishop of a titular see or does he have to resign from that post also? Roberto221 (talk) 10:03, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Canon Law doesn't really address this, but the current practice seems to be that auxiliary bishops retain their titular see, without the addition of "emeritus". NDomer09 (talk) 19:02, 21 September 2017 (UTC)


 * It would note make sense for them to resign their titular see from the Catholic perspective (unless they have left the Church or otherwise being sanctioned).--Dcheney (talk) 10:15, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Presentation of data
Hello, I have culled the extraneous data in the table, which attempted to shoehorn far more data than the table structure provides for. Since this is a table, it is designed to present concise and relevant information in discrete cells (rows and columns). It is not for us to arbitrarily attempt to split a cell by the addition of a line of dashes, and it is not helpful to overload the meaning of a cell by adding information which does not belong there. If someone wishes to remake the table with more columns, let us discuss that design decision here. Until then, let us present the data in a regular format, without surprising or confusing the reader with ad hoc markups. Elizium23 (talk) 01:37, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Religious Order Membership
Today, someone removed all the designations following the names of bishops that indicate which religious order they belong to (for those that do). This seems to be a substantial removal of significant information with zero discussion. The policy cited does not mention religious order post-nominals at all. May we have a discussion first before such a huge loss of information? Dcheney (talk) 08:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)