Growth/decline in dioceses with females as ordinaries

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

-----Original Message-----
From: ******** ***************
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 10:26 PM
To: lcrew@newark.rutgers.edu
Subject: more statistics

Came across your bishop stats at this website.
Do you have statistics showing rise or decline of congregations with
female priests and/or bishops?

thank you,
~*******

You can monitor how each diocese grew or declined in the decade 1993-2003 at
http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/communicants93_03.html.  See
especially the chart titled "Dioceses Ranked in Growth (Decline) During the
Decade 1993-2003 in The Episcopal Church USA."

The  following dioceses had females as ordinaries for part of that decade.
The diocesan ranks are in percent of growth/loss of communicants and
attendance.   108 dioceses were ranked:

Indianapolis (Waynick since 1997), 12th communicants; 73rd attendance)

Maine (Knudsen since 1997); 74th communicants; 55th attendance)

Nevada (Jefferts-Schori since 2001); 43rd communicants; 12th attendance

Rhode Island (Wolf since 1995); 64th communicants; 77th attendance

Utah (Irish since 1996); 42nd communicants; 10th attendance

Vermont (McLeod from 1993-2001); 62nd communicants; 62nd attendance

This information cannot support any claim that a bishop caused the
growth/decline  rate:   not one of the women served as bishop for the full
decade in question;   each bishop inherits entrenched patterns of
growth/decline long in place at the parish level, and it would be difficult
to claim that people join/attend a parish primarily because of what they
think of the bishop.

I do not have access to data that would let me correlate the growth/decline
of parishes with the gender of the priests in charge.

Best wishes.

LC

Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, E. Orange, NJ 07018. 973-395-1068
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew