BISMARCK, DIOCESI DI - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. II, p. 968

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

BISMARCK, DIOCESE OF. — In the State of North Dakota (United States of America), a suffragan of St. Paul, Minnesota. Erected on 31 Dec. 1909 by the division of the Diocese of Fargo, Bismarck comprises the western part of the State, with an area of more than 96,375 sq. km. In this diocese, at Richardson, is the Benedictine abbey of St. Mary of the Assumption, founded in 1901 by the Right Reverend Dom Vincent Werle, O.S.B., who was later, on 9 Apr. 1910, elected the first bishop of Bismarck.

Statistics: 48,809 Catholics, mostly belonging to German families who had immigrated especially from Russia and Hungary; 154 diocesan priests and 79 religious; 78 parishes, 29 chapels, 74 missions, 4 stations; 1 boys' college, 10 diocesan and parochial high schools; in 1947 there were 219 conversions.

BIBL.: AAS, 2 (1910), p. 290; 3 (1911), p. 506; M. C. Coyle, s. V. in The Cath. Enc., XVI, Index, (1914), pp. 10-11; XVII (Suppl. 1922), p. 110 ff.; J. H. O'Donnell, The Catholic hierarchy of the United States 1790-1922, Washington 1922, pp. 205-206; E. Van Cauwenbergh, s. V. in DHG, IX, cols. 8-9; The Official Catholic Directory, New York 1947, part 2, pp. 333-36. Corrado Morin