Lincoln, Rapid City top list of America’s most vocation-rich dioceses
May 22, 2026
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CWN Editor's Note: The Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska (1 seminarian per 2,007 Catholics) and the Diocese of Rapid City, South Dakota (1 seminarian per 2,332 Catholics) top the list of U.S. dioceses with the highest ratio of diocesan seminarians to Catholics, according to an analysis of data published in the most recent (2025) edition of The Official Catholic Directory.
The Dioceses of Salina, Kansas; Wichita, Kansas; Steubenville, Ohio; Duluth, Minnesota; Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida; Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia; Helena, Montana; and Nashville, Tennessee, round out the top ten.
Two dioceses—Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Fairbanks, Alaska—reported no diocesan seminarians. Other dioceses that struggle to attract priestly vocations, according to the data in the Directory, include Brownsville, Texas (1 seminarian per 239,896 Catholics); Norwich, Connecticut (1 seminarian per 228,520 Catholics); and Rockville Centre, New York (1 seminarian per 193,629 Catholics).
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