Minnesota and the Upper Midwest - Episcopal Training Grounds

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The Upper Midwest has been a major provider of Good Shepherds to the Catholic Church in recent years. Twenty-two of the 180 diocesan Bishops of the United States are now serving or have served in Minnesota or our surrounding states.

In fact, a recent list of bishops done by Rocco the All-Knowing finds that the upper Midwest is indeed the Cradle of Bishops in the U.S. The list by the numbers:

Baltimore – 3; Washington – 3; Denver – 3; Dallas – 3; Duluth – 3 (Brom, Schwietz, Schnurr); New York – 3; Newark – 4; San Francisco – 5; Boston – 5; San Antonio – 5; New Orleans – 6; Los Angeles – 6;

St Paul and Minneapolis -- 7: Archbishop Robert Carlson (St Louis); Peter Christensen (Superior), John LeVoir (New Ulm), John Kinney (St Cloud), Frederick Campbell (Columbus), Richard Pates (Des Moines); Paul Sirba (Duluth)

Philadelphia – 7 (Cdl. Rigali is from St. Louis); Pittsburgh – 7; Detroit – 8; Chicago -- 9: St Louis -- 10

Here is a complete list of all current bishops who served dioceses in Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Iowa before getting their current appointment.

• Bishop Robert Brom, from Duluth to San Diego in 1989
• Bishop Roger Schwietz, from Duluth to Anchorage in 2000
  
• Bishop Dennis Schnurr, who performed miracles with vocations in Duluth soon will become Archbishop of Cincinnati after January 1
  
• Bishop Raymond Burke of La Crosse became Archbishop of St. Louis and now is head of the Apostilic Signature (High Court) and serves on the Pontifical Council for Bishops and will soon become a Cardinal at the next papal consistory.
• Bishop Daniel DiNardo of Sioux City, Iowa, became Cardinal DiNardo of Galveston-Houston in 2006.
• Auxiliary Bishop Roger Carlson of St. Paul-Minneapolis became Bishop of Sioux Falls, SD, then Saginaw , Mich. , and is now Archbishop of St. Louis, Missouri since earlier this year.
• Auxiliary Bishop John Kinney of StP-M became Bishop of Bismarck and has been Bishop of St. Cloud since 1995.
• Auxiliary Bishop Frederick Campbell, also from StP-M has been Bishop of Columbus, Ohio since 2004.
  
• Auxiliary Bishop Richard Pates of StP-M has been Bishop of Des Moines, Iowa since 2008.
  
• Father Peter Christensen of St Paul-Minneapolis has been Bishop of Superior since 2007.
  
• Father Donald Kettler went from Sioux Falls to Fairbanks , Alaska in 2002.
  
• Father John LeVoir of Stillwater is now Bishop of New Ulm since 2008.
  
• Father Michael Hoeppner of Winona is now Bishop of Crookston since 2007.
  
• Father Paul Sirba recently became Bishop of Duluth and will be ordained next month.
  
• Bishop John Vlazny of Winona has been Bishop of Portland, Ore. since 1997.
  
• Bishop Charles Chaput went from Rapid City to become Archbishop of Denver in 1997.
  
• Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz went from Milwaukee to Lincoln, Nebraska in 1992.
  
• Bishop David Zubik recently went from Green Bay back to his home diocese of Pittsburgh in 2007.
  
• Bishop Paul Swain of Sioux Falls came from Madison , Wisconsin in 2006.
  
• Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, a Papal Nuncio in the Caribbean, ordained in 2004, originally was a priest from Sioux Falls who has served in the Vatican's Diplomatic Corps.
  
• Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee is now Archbishop of New York since last Spring and will become a Cardinal at the next consistory.
• And just as of yesterday, Bishop Jerome Listecki of La Crosse is going to become the new Archbishop of Milwaukee.