Mission Land, USA—this is the name Glenmary uses to capture the high degree of mission need in Appalachia, the rural South and the Southwest. This is the same area revealed in dark red on the map at right. There is mission need elsewhere in the United States, but not in the same concentration as this area that has become the focus of Glenmary’s work.
The dark red area in the southern portion of the Catholic church map at right roughly corresponds to Glenmary’s definition of Mission Land, USA. In the counties marked in shades of red, Catholics are less than 5 percent of the population.
This same area also stood out on the very first map of “No Priest Land, USA” created by Glenmary’s founder, Father William Howard Bishop. In 1938, of the 3,000 U.S. counties, only 1,000 had a resident priest.
The Glenmary Research Center (GRC) supports and assists Glenmary Home Missioners by providing applied research to Glenmary leadership, individual missioners, Church leaders and the wider society. The GRC operates under a mandate from the Glenmary Executive Council.
Throughout our history, Glenmary missioners have moved into counties, established the Church, nurtured communities to maturity, returned parishes to the local diocese and then moved on to areas of greater mission need. Over the past 80 years, Glenmary priests and Brothers, along with coworkers, have successfully nurtured and/or established more than 100 mission communities. Today, our missioners continue to staff missions and ministry.
A series of maps produced by the Glenmary Research Center makes it easy for Catholics living anywhere in the United States to compare how their county of residence stacks up against the counties identified by Glenmary as having “high mission need.”
A common question asked of Glenmarians and coworkers when they visit parishes to make mission appeals or set up displays at vocation and ministry fairs is this: “How does the county where I live (work/go to school) compare with the areas where Glenmary missioners serve?”
The maps in this 2007 series were complied by Clifford Grammich, who collected the Catholic data for Religious Congregations & Membership: 2000. The series includes:
4119 Glenmary Trace, Fairfield, OH 45014
Mailing Address: PO Box 465618, Cincinnati OH 45246
