Paul Allen

Roman Catholic entities in Canada

Jurisdictions

Let’s create a dataset of two types of jurisdiction used to organize the Roman Catholic Church in Canada:

  1. Province
  2. Diocese

An (ecclesiastical) province is one of the basic forms of jurisdiction in Christian churches with traditional hierarchical structure. In the Roman Catholic Church, an ecclesiastical province consists of several dioceses, one of them being a metropolitan archdiocese, headed by a metropolitan archbishop who has ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all other bishops of the province and one or more suffragan dioceses, headed by diocesan bishops.

The Roman Catholic Church's 18 ecclesiastical provinces in Canada.
Figure 1. The Roman Catholic Church’s 18 ecclesiastical provinces in Canada. Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Canada_Roman_Catholic_dioceses_map.png, accessed 2022-11-27.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) identifies 18 archdioceses and 40 dioceses in Canada.1https://www.cccb.ca/the-catholic-church-in-canada/ecclesiastical-circumscriptions/dioceses/, accessed 2022-11-27.

Figure 2. Roman Catholic Dioceses in Canada. Source: https://www.cccb.ca/the-catholic-church-in-canada/interactive-map-of-latin-dioceses-eparchies-and-ordinariates/, accessed 2022-11-27.

Note: Our own interactive map is to follow.

We have merged a list of archdioceses and dioceses by ecclesiastical province2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_dioceses_in_Canada, accessed 2022-11-27. with the CCCB’s directory of archdioces and dioceses3https://www.cccb.ca/the-catholic-church-in-canada/directory-of-dioceses-eparchies-ordinariates/?search=&region=&type=latin-rite, accessed 2022-11-27. to create our dataset (TSV file) with the following fields:

Field Description
ECCLESIASTICAL_PROVINCE_NAME Authorized name of ecclesiastical province in Canada
ECCLESIASTICAL_PROVINCE_GEOGRAPHY Brief description of the ecclesiastical province’s catchment area
DIOCESE_NAME Authorized name of (arch)diocese
ARCHDIOCESE_FLAG 0 = Not archdiocese
1 = Archdiocese
DIOCESE_ADDRESS Street, city, province or territory, postal code, country
DIOCESE_WEBSITE URL of diocese’s corporate website
DIOCESE_WIKI URL of diocese’s entry in Wikipedia

The borders and other characteristics of an ecclesiastical province and its dioceses may change over time. Our dataset will ultimately address these changes for any diocese that participated in the Indian Residential School system.

Religious orders

The term (religious) province also refers to a geographical and administrative subdivision in a number of religious orders. The borders of these provinces are determined independently of any diocesan structure and are usually far larger than a diocese. These provinces are typically headed by provincial superiors, though the title differs by order.4https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastical_province

Extend this discussion to include the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and other religious orders that participated in the Indian Residential School system.