Last week, the The Washington Post reported that Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala
was elevated from auxiliary bishop of the Washington Archdiocese to Bishop of West Virginia.
This surprised me a little, not because Bishop Menjivar-Ayala has been promoted, but because I had never heard of a Roman Catholic diocese named after a state. The Episcopalian Church (the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America) does organize its sees by state, but I had never heard of the Roman Catholic Church doing so.
Today I had a look at the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and indeed Bishop Menjivar-Ayala's new see is the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. And of course the website lists not the "Washington Archdiocese" but the "Archdiocese of Washington".
