In Syracuse, Bishop O'Keefe, who is 68 years old, will manage a much smaller diocese.

In the early 1900s, a small independent diocese of the church was founded by Serbian immigrants, and headquartered in Illinois.

That afternoon we took a small detour to explore the nearby remains of the smallest diocese in medieval Ireland.

As many as 30 people in the small diocese have accused 8 priests of sexual abuse.

Only two small dioceses were permitted to continue, the others were considered non-existent.

Yet even his few references make it clear that the much smaller and far less visible diocese outperforms the glamorous archdiocese.

Since then, bishops in dioceses both large and small have been asked whether they were prepared to excommunicate Catholic politicians.

At the beginning of the 14th century Baleč was a centre of the small Catholic diocese.

He tells us that his small diocese (about forty miles square) contained 800 churches, which supposes a very dense population.

Although a small diocese in terms of area, it has a large Roman Catholic population, with approximately 126,000 Catholics.