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Priestly ordinations in the United States are up slightly from last year, but are heavily concentrated in certain regions of the country.
According to data gathered and analyzed by The Pillar, of the 342 men ordained to the diocesan priesthood in 2026, a little more than half were ordained in Midwest and Southeast dioceses, despite those dioceses making up only 28% of the Catholic population in the country.
Nationally, priestly ordination numbers this year were up from last year, when 315 men were ordained to the diocesan priesthood.
However, numbers are still lower than they were a decade ago. In 2016, there were 376 men ordained to the diocesan priesthood in the United States, making the ordination class that year about 9% larger than this year’s class.
The Pillar analyzed the data both for individual dioceses and for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 14 pastoral regions. Data was collected from a variety of online, publicly available resources including diocesan press releases, social media posts and diocesan websites.
Diocesan analysis
In 2026, only one U.S. diocese ordained 10 or more men to the priesthood: the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina (10 ordinations). Two dioceses ordained nine men: the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the Archdiocese
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