Roman Catholic Archdioceses in North America (1983: Doomsday)

An ecclesiastical province is a large jurisdiction of religious government, so named by analogy with a secular province, existing in certain hierarchical Christian churches, especially in the Catholic Church (both Latin and Eastern Catholic) and Orthodox Churches and in the Anglican Communion. In the early church, and in some modern churches, its chief city and seat is called a metropolis and its bishop is called a metropolitan.

In the Catholic Church, a province consists of a metropolitan archdiocese and one or more of other particular churches, usually dioceses. The archbishop of the metropolitan see is the Metropolitan of the province. The delimitation of church provinces in the Latin Church is reserved to the Holy See.

However, there have always been individual dioceses which do not belong to any province, but are directly subject to the Holy See. There are also some archdioceses that are not metropolitan sees and some that are suffragan to another archdiocese.

The authority of the metropolitan over the sees within his province is very limited. During a vacancy in a suffragan see, the metropolitan can name a temporary diocesan administrator if the College of Consultors of the diocese fails to elect one within the prescribed period. A metropolitan generally presides at the installation and consecration of new bishops in the province, and serves as the first court of appeal regarding canonical matters of provincial diocesan tribunals. The metropolitan's insignia is the pallium.

The authority exercised by the metropolitan over his suffragan dioceses is as limited today as it ever has been in history. Emphasis is placed on each bishop having a direct relationship with the pope and not dependent on the metropolitan. The metropolitan is supposed to hold a provincial council every three year. Because of restrictions, he probably cannot officially visit dioceses other than his own, that are technically within his jurisdiction. He can nominate candidates for vacancies to the bishopric within his province.

The borders of provinces have often been inspired, or even determined, by historical and/or present political borders; the same is often true of diocesan borders within a province. The following are some examples:

Doomsday

The Soviet Union's attack upon the United States and Canada on Doomsday brought the destruction of the cities and towns in which the vast majority of U.S. archdioceses and dioceses were based, along with their counterparts in much of Europe and Vatican City itself.

Contact between Roman Catholics in the U.S. and Canada was initially reduced to the local level, and that remained the case throughout the 1980s. Eventually, though, dioceses and archdioceses slowly began to develop on a regional level.

The organization of dioceses and archdioceses in the former United States currently is fluid. With the Vatican leadership becoming aware of more and more survivor nations and city-states in the region, it desires to have a level of organization that works best for the current political and social situation in the former U.S. The Vatican therefore is beginning the process of mapping the former United States, identifying not just where people live in each of the 50 states, but also which areas are strong Catholic areas and which are not.

The current list of Metropolitan archdioceses in Canada and the former United States are:
 * Billings - includes dioceses in Torrington, Dodge City, Lakotah, Provo, Saskatoon, and Coeur d'Alene
 * Manchester - includes dioceses in Aroostook/New Brunswick, Plymouth/Outer Lands and in former New York State; the Delmarva diocese currently covers former Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey
 * Midland - includes dioceses in Dinetah, Hattiesburg, Lafayette, Hot Springs, Paris, Nacgodoches, Stillwater and Dos Laredos, as well as Catholics in Selma and New Montgomery, Alabama
 * Morristown - includes the Asheville, Charleston, Elizabethtown and Greenville dioceses
 * Saguenay
 * Saint John's - covers the current Dominion of Canada
 * San Juan - covers Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and survivor communities in former Florida and south Georgia
 * Stowe - includes dioceses in Superior and also in International Falls, Madison, Quad Cities and Thunder Bay
 * Toledo - a new archdiocese, covering churches in former Ohio, Indiana and Ontario
 * Victoria - covers Victoria, Free State of Alaska, Hawaii, Prince Rupert, the Municipal States of the Pacific, Chumash, SIerra Nevada and all other communities in former Alaska, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Washington state, Oregon and northern and central California
 * The DIocese of Florence also covers all RCC churches in the second Confederate States of America, but is expected to come under the authority of the Morristown Archdiocese soon