On average it takes about 5 years to be promoted from auxiliary to ordinary. Only 19 percent of the ordinaries are bishops in the same diocese where they were ordained as priests. An additional 35 percent came from the same ecclesiastical province as the diocese in which they are ordinaries. Only 10 percent of the ordinaries were auxiliaries in the diocese to which they were first appointed ordinaries. Perhaps one reason ordinaries are not always chosen from the diocese they head is the influence of archbishops in making episcopal appointment.
More ordinaries tend to have had experience working in chanceries than auxiliaries have.
Top chancery positions were held by 58 percent of the ordinaries but by only 42 percent of the auxiliaries. There was no difference between ordinaries and auxiliaries when it came to experience as pastors. The average archbishop received his archdiocese at the age of 53. Only 29 percent of the archbishops were ordained priests in the archdiocese that they now govern. An additional 10 percent came from the same ecclesiastical province as the archdiocese.