Pre Pope John Paul II Bishops (updated)

So the question: How many active bishops were appointed to their current post before Pope John Paul II became Pope?

The answer is that only 1 remains.

That ordinary is:

• Bishop Gilbert Guillaume Marie-Jean Aubry of Saint-Denis-de-La Réunion
• Named 20 Nov 1975 by Pope Paul VI
• Born 10 May 1942
• Will turn 79 years old in a bit over a month.

There are no longer any Auxiliary Bishops that meet the criteria. The last one retired in January 2012.

Over 45,000 Bishops

Once again, I've been working on some older data entry for the site. In doing so, it has passed a milestone: it now has data on over 45,000 Bishops. The recent additions include many French bishops from the 14th and 15th centuries.

Here is a quick table showing how the data has expanded over time:

Year	Month	Bishops	Months from previous
2002	Jun	5,000
2002	Nov	10,000	5
2003	Oct	15,000	11
2006	Sep	20,000	35
2009	Jan	25,000	28
2011	Feb	30,000	25
2014	Jan	35,000	35
2018	Aug	40,000	55
2021	Mar	45,000	31

(Note: there are a few "bishops" on the site that are not really bishops. These are mostly either ordinaries of a jurisdiction such as a prefecture or cardinals that were not also bishops.)

Deadliest Month for Bishops

Thanks in large part to Covid-19, this month is now the most deadly for bishops in history. The previous record was set just last month.

 

Month	Bishop Deaths
Jan 2021	27*
Dec 2020	23
Mar 1988	22*
Jun 2020	21
Feb 2013	21
Jul 2011	19*

*if you look at the tables on my website, it includes one additional death for this month for a person covered who was never a bishop (for example, an Apostolic Prefect). 

To help put this in perspective, over the last year (2020) the average was 14.9 deaths per month. Over the last decade, it was 12.6 per month. And over the last century it was 8.3 bishop deaths per month.

May they all rest in peace.

Bishop Deaths in 2020.
Bishop Deaths in 2021.

(updated on 31 Jan 2021)