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Archdiocese of the Catholic Church From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Archdiocese of New York (Latin: Archidiœcesis Neo-Eboracensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the State of New York. It encompasses the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City and the counties of Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester to the north of the city. It does not include the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn or Queens, which are part of the Diocese of Brooklyn; however, the Diocese of Brooklyn is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of New York.
Archdiocese of New York Archidiœcesis Neo-Eboracensis | |
|---|---|
| |
 Coat of arms | |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| Territory | New York City (Bronx, Manhattan, Staten Island), Counties of Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester, New York |
| Ecclesiastical province | New York |
| Coordinates | 40°45′27″N 73°57′50″W |
| Statistics | |
| Area | 12,212 km2 (4,715 sq mi) |
| Population - Total - Catholics | (as of 2019) 6,238,441 2,807,298 (45%) |
| Parishes | 288[1] |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Catholic Church |
| Sui iuris church | Latin Church |
| Rite | Roman Rite |
| Established |
|
| Cathedral | St. Patrick's Cathedral |
| Patron saint | St. Patrick[2] |
| Secular priests | 320 |
| Current leadership | |
| Pope | Francis |
| Archbishop | Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan |
| Metropolitan Archbishop | Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan |
| Auxiliary Bishops | |
| Vicar General | Joseph LaMorte |
| Bishops emeritus | |
| Map | |
 | |
| Website | |
| archny | |
The Archdiocese of New York is the second-largest diocese in the United States by population, encompassing 296 parishes that serve around 2.8 million Catholics, in addition to hundreds of Catholic schools, hospitals and charities.[3][4] The archdiocese also operates St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York. The archbishop is also the metropolitan of the larger Ecclesiastical Province of New York.
The Good Newsroom is the digital news outlet of the archdiocese and includes a website, social media channels, an app, and a weekly e-newsletter.[5]
The Reverend R. Luke Concanen was appointed the first bishop of what was then the Diocese of New York in 1808. As of 2024, the current archbishop of New York is Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Since 1911 every archbishop of the archdiocese has been elevated to the College of Cardinals, although such elevation is often deferred for a number of years.
The ordinary of the Archdiocese of New York is an archbishop whose cathedral is Cathedral of St. Patrick in Manhattan, New York. The archdiocese is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province of New York, which includes the following suffragan dioceses:
The ecclesiastical province includes all of New York State, except for Fishers Island, which is part of the Province of Hartford. As such, the metropolitan archbishop possesses certain limited authority over the suffragan sees of the province (see Ecclesiastical Province § Catholic Church).
On November 26, 1784, Pope Pius VI erected the Apostolic Prefecture of United States of America, creating a separate jurisdiction for the new United States from the Catholic Church of the United Kingdom.[7] That same year, the new State of New York repealed the Colonial-era law prohibiting Catholic priests from residing in New York.[8]
With the anti-priest law repealed, the French consul, Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, organized a group of laymen in 1785 to open St. Peter's Parish in Manhattan, the first Catholic parish in New York City. The congregation purchased land for a new church from Trinity Church, supplement community donations with a gift of 1,000 silver pieces from King Charles III of Spain. The St. Peter's Church was dedicated in 1787; its worshippers included Sister Elizabeth Ann Seton and the philanthropist Pierre Toussaint.[9] In 1800, the congregation opened a school at St. Peter's, the first Catholic school in New York.[10]
On November 6, 1789, Pius VI raised the Apostolic Prefecture of United States to the Diocese of Baltimore, headed by the first American bishop, John Carroll. For the next nine years, Carroll was in charge of the Catholic Church in New York State along with the rest of the nation.[11][7] The second Catholic church in New York State, and the first outside of New York City, was St. Mary's Church in Albany, New York, founded in 1796.[12]
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On April 8, 1808, Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of New York and three other dioceses, taking their territory from the Diocese of Baltimore. He simultaneously elevated the Diocese of Baltimore to a metropolitan archdiocese and assigned all four new sees as its suffragans.[13] At the time of its formation, the Diocese of New York included:
Pius VII appointed Monsignor R. Luke Concanen, then serving in Rome, as the first bishop of New York. However, he was prevented from sailing to New York by a French blockade. On Carroll's recommendation, Concanen appointed Reverend Anthony Kohlmann, rector of St. Peter's Parish, to administer the diocese as his vicar general. Kohlman traveled extensively throughout the new diocese, celebrating masses and providing sacraments to individuals. To relieve overcrowding at St. Peter's, Kohlman started construction in 1809 of the original Cathedral of St. Patrick in Lower Manhattan. He also established the New York Literary Institution, the first Catholic school in the new diocese.[15][16] Concanen died in Italy in 1810, having never made it to the United States.[17]
On October 4, 1814, Reverend John Connolly was appointed the second bishop of New York by Pius VII.[18] When Connolly arrived in New York, the diocese had four priests and three churches: St. Peter's and St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, and St. Mary's in Albany.[19] The Catholic population of the diocese was approximately 15,000, primarily Irish with some English, French and Germans.[20]
In 1817, Connolly invited the Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg, Maryland, to open the first Catholic orphanage in New York City.[21][22] During his tenure, Connolly traveled over 1,000 miles on horseback through the diocese. He spent a great deal of time ministering to Irish immigrants building the Erie Canal in Upstate New York.[23] The first parish in Utica, St. John's, was erected in 1819.[24] In 1823, St. Patrick's Parish was founded in Rochester, the first in that city.[25] Connolly died on February 6, 1825.
To replace Connolly, Pope Leo XII in 1826 named Reverend John Dubois as the next bishop of New York.[26] At the time of his consecration, the diocese had 18 priests, 12 churches and a Catholic population of 150,000. Dubois faced a primarily Irish Catholic population that was not happy over the Vatican appointing a French bishop. Desperately needing a seminary to prepare more priests, Dubois spent two years in Europe trying to raise funds.[27] Back in New York, Dubois built his first seminary in Nyack in 1833, but it burned down the next year. He later opened another seminary in Lafargeville in northern New York. He also fought a long battle with the trustees of the first St. Patrick's Cathedral over administration of that facility.[28]
In 1837, at Dubois' request, Pope Gregory XVI appointed Reverend John J. Hughes as coadjutor bishop of New York to assist the ailing bishop.[29] Unlike previous Catholic leaders in New York, Hughes did not try to build bonds with Protestant leaders and was very willing to fight for what he deemed as the rights of Catholics.[30]
In 1840, Hughes started a campaign to persuade the Public School Society, which ran the public schools in New York City, to allocated seven schools for Catholic students and teachers. Hughes argued Catholics students in the existing schools were being forced to hear readings from the Protestant King James Bible. When the Society refused, he started lobbying the State of New York to subsidize Catholic schools.[31]
In 1841, Hughes founded St. John's College in the Bronx. Later to become Fordham University, St. John's was the first Catholic institution of higher learning in the Northeastern United States. Realizing that the Lafargeville seminary was too distant, Hughes that same year moved it to the new St. John's campus.[32] Despite Hughes' lobbying, the New York State Legislature passed the Maclay Act in 1842, which prohibited public funding of religious schools.[33][34]
When Dubois died in 1842, Hughes automatically succeeded him as bishop of New York. Having lost the legal battle over public funding of Catholic schools, Hughes worked to establish a Catholic political party. One of his other priorities was to address parish debts and loosen the control of boards of trustees over these parishes.[31] Hughes decided to found an independent Catholic school system in the city, staffed by members of religious orders. During his tenure as bishop, he opened over 24 schools.[10] By 1870, 19 percent of the city's children were attending Catholic schools.[35]
The difficulties faced by Catholics at the time included anti-Catholic bigotry in general and in the New York school system and a strong Nativist movement that failed to keep Catholics out of the country but warned that control by "the Papacy" was a threat to American republicanism.[11]
On April 23, 1847, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Albany and the Diocese of Buffalo.[36][37][38][39] This left the Diocese of New York with the following areas:
On July 19, 1850, Pius IX elevated the Diocese of New York to an archdiocese, making Hughes the first archbishop of New York. On July 29, 1853, to address the burgeoning Catholic population in New York and New Jersey, Pius IX created two new American dioceses:
At this point, the new archdiocese consisted of New York City, Richmond County and Bronx Counties, and the seven counties north of the city. In 1858, Hughes laid the cornerstone for the present St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.[31]
In July 1863, during the American Civil War, Hughes used his influence to help stop the Draft Riots in Lower Manhattan. They were started by Irish working men as a protest against conscription into the Union Army, but devolved into race riots that killed 119 African-Americans and resulted in the burning of many buildings. Very ill at the time, Hughes appeared on his balcony to address several thousand people, urging them to be peaceful and loyal to the United States. Other priests in Manhattan confronted mobs, stopping their rampages.[42][31] Hughes died on January 3, 1864.
To replace Hughes, Pope Pius IX named Bishop John McCloskey in January 1865 as the second archbishop of New York.[43] When the original St. Patrick's Cathedral was destroyed by fire in 1866, he rebuilt it in two years. McCloskey presided over the dedication of the present Patrick's Cathedral in 1879. In October 1880, Pope Leo XIII named Bishop Michael Corrigan as coadjutor archbishop to assist McCloskey.[44][45]
In response to the growing Catholic population in New York, McCloskey established 88 new parishes, including the first parish for African-Americans along with new parishes for the Polish and Italian communities.[46][47] The number of priests rose from 150 to 400 during his tenure. At the time of McCloskey's death in 1885, there were 37,000 children enrolled at archdiocesan schools. He also established several charitable societies for children and a hospital for the mentally ill.[48]
On July 25, 1885, Pope Leo XIII transferred the Bahamas to the Archdiocese of New York. The shipping connections between New York City and the islands made it easy for the archdiocese to administer them.[49]
McCloskey died on October 18, 1885; Corrigan automatically succeeded him as archbishop.[45]
During the 1886 mayoral campaign in New York City, Reverend Edward McGlynn, pastor of St. Stephen's Parish in Manhattan, announced that he would speak at a political rally for the journalist Henry George, the candidate of the United Labor Party. Corrigan, who was very close to the Democratic political machine at Tammany Hall, had had previous conflicts with McGlynn over his political affiliations. He ordered McGlynn to cancel his speech. McGlynn delivered the speech anyway and Corrigan immediately removed him as pastor of St. Stephen's. McGlynn was excommunicated by the Vatican in 1887.[50]
In the 1880s, the Vatican became concerned that the Catholic hierarchy in the United States, dominated by Irish prelates, was neglecting the needs of the increasing numbers of Catholic Italian immigrants. The Vatican rebuked Corrigan in 1887 for neglecting the Italians and treating them in a humiliating way. The Irish parishes would only allow Italians to attend Mass in church basements. Corrigan refused to open Italian parishes, claiming that the Italians were "not very clean" and were too poor to support them.[51]
Sister (and later Saint) Frances Xavier Cabrini arrived in New York in 1889 from Italy to establish an orphanage in Manhattan. When she met with Corrigan, he told her that he would not allow her orphanage and that she should return to Italy. Cabrini told him that, “I am here by order of the Holy See, and here I must stay.” At that point, Corrigan relented and invited Cabrini to work in the schools. He later allowed her to open an orphanage.[51] In 1891, Corrigan started work on St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers.[52]
By 1900, the archdiocese had over 55,000 students enrolled in its schools.[10]
In 1902, after a fall at the St. Joseph's construction site, Corrigan developed pneumonia and died. Leo XIII appointed Auxiliary Bishop John Farley on September 15, 1902, as Corrigan's replacement as archbishop.[53] Farley established nearly fifty new parochial schools within his first eight years as archbishop.[54] After Farley died in 1918, Pope Benedict XV appointed Bishop Patrick Hayes on March 10, 1919, as archbishop.[55] That same year, near the end of World War I, the Vatican named Hayes as the apostolic vicar of the Military Vicariate of the United States. This gave him jurisdiction to minister to American servicemen and women throughout the world. Succeeding archbishops of New York retained this position for the next few decades.[56]
Pope Pius XI erected the Apostolic Prefecture of Bahama on March 21, 1929, starting its separation from the Archdiocese of New York.[49] When Hayes died in 1938, Pope Pius XI appointed Auxiliary Bishop Francis Spellman on April 15, 1939, as archbishop of New York.[57]
In 1949, the 240 gravediggers at the Catholic cemeteries in the archdiocese went on strike. After negotiations with the union broke down, Spellman led a group seminarians to dig the graves at one cemetery.[58][59] Spellman eventually reached a settlement with the union.[60]
During his long tenure as archbishop, Spellman raised over $500 million for the construction of schools, churches, and other institutions.[61] During a five-year period in the 1950s, he constructed 15 churches, 94 schools, 22 rectories, 60 convents and 34 other institutions in the archdiocese.[58] Spellman died of a stroke on December 3, 1967.[62]
After Spellman's death, Pope Paul VI named Auxiliary Bishop Terence Cooke as the seventh archbishop of New York on March 2, 1968.[63] Cooke helped implement the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the archdiocese, and adopted a more collegial management style than Spellman. During his tenure as archbishop, Cooke founded the following
On October 6, 1983, Cooke died from leukemia. To replace him Pope John Paul II named Bishop John O'Connor on January 26, 1984.[65] In 1986, the Vatican erected the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, removing jurisdiction for Catholic ministry to servicemen and women from the archbishop of New York.[66] In 1990, O'Connor started the canonization process for Pierre Toussaint, the formerly enslaved man from Haiti who became a Catholic philanthropist in the 19th century.[67]
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After O'Connor died on May 3, 2000, John Paul II appointed Bishop Edward Egan as archbishop on May 11, 2000.[68] After the September 11 terrorist attacks in Manhattan, Egan went to the disaster scene. He ministered to the injured and anointed the dead. He established a center for victims' families at the New School in Manhattan and an interfaith service at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.[69] For retired priests, Egan established the John Cardinal O'Connor residence in 2003 at the previous site of the minor seminary in the Bronx.[70]
On January 19, 2007, Egan announced the closure of ten under-utilized parishes and the merging of 11 other parishes. He also established five new parishes; three in Orange County, and one each in Staten Island and Dutchess County. He also approved building projects for nine parishes.[71][72]
In 2008, the archdiocese celebrated the bicentennial of its establishment as a diocese. To mark the occasion, Pope Benedict XVI visited the archdiocese from April 18 to April 20, 2008. During his visit, Benedict visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, the United Nations, Ground Zero, St. Joseph's Parish in Yorkville, and St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers. The pope also celebrated a mass at Yankee Stadium. When Egan retired on February 23, 2009, Benedict XVI named Archbishop Timothy Dolan as the 10th archbishop of New York.[73]
Soon after his arrival in New York, Dolan oversaw a widely consultative pair of "strategic planning" processes, examining the archdiocese's hundreds of grade schools ("Pathways to Excellence", 2009–2013) and parishes ("Making All Things New", 2010–2015). Ultimately, Dolan announced that dozens of underutilized schools and parishes would close or merge with others in their neighborhoods, due to decades-long trends of shifting populations, increasing expenses, declining attendance, and decreasing clergy.[74][75] In November 2010, the archdiocese announced the closing of 32 schools.[76]
In January 2024, Dolan announced that the archdiocese would move its offices from the Terence Cardinal Cooke Catholic Building in Manhattan to another location close to St. Patrick's Cathedral.[77]
As of April 2024, Dolan is the current archbishop of New York.
As of 2023, the Catholic population of the archdiocese was 2,642,740. These Catholics were served by 320 archdiocesan priests, 195 priests of religious orders, and 140 international priests. The archdiocese had 228 permanent deacons and 443 men and women religious.[78] In comparison, in 1929 the Catholic population of the archdiocese was 1,273,291, with 1,314 clergy and 444 churches. Over 170,348 children were enrolled in Catholic educational and welfare institutions.[79]
As of 2023, the archdiocese had 60 men enrolled in its priestly formation program.
This is a list of present and past bishops, archbishops and auxiliary bishops of New York.[80][81]
As of 2024, the Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of New York, the archdiocesan school system, operates 148 schools with a total enrollment of 50,154. It is headquartered in the Cooke Building in Midtown Manhattan.[84]
Calvary & Allied Cemeteries, an archdiocesan organization, operates the following cemeteries:
Parishes own and operate the following cemeteries:
The archdiocese in 2017 announced that it was applying for a $100 million mortgage on the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, one of its properties in Manhattan, to pay victims of sexual abuse by its clergy who had not sued the archdiocese.[88]
In August 2018, the archdiocese reported that between 2016 and 2018, its Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program paid nearly $60 million to 278 victims of sex abuse by clergy.[89] On September 26, 2018, it was reported that the Archdiocese of New York, and the three other dioceses where Theodore McCarrick served as a bishop, were facing an investigation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for McCarrick's alleged sex abuse.[90] On January 28, 2019, the New York State Assembly and Senate passed a law allowing prosecutors to bring criminal charges until a victim turned 28, and permitting victims to sue until age 55.[91] Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law on February 14, 2019.[92]
On April 26, 2019, the archdiocese released a list of 120 Catholic clergy accused of committing acts of sexual abuse.[93] Some of those on the list, which included both male and female church workers, had been convicted of crimes and many others were deceased.[94] Cardinal Dolan released a letter of apology, asking for forgiveness.[95]
On August 14, 2019, James Grien, who accused McCarrick of sexually abusing him when McCarrick was an auxiliary bishop of New York, sued the archdiocese.[96][97] In his lawsuit, Grien also stated that McCarrick's status as a friend of his family allowed him to continue to visit and sexually abuse him after leaving the archdiocese in 1981.[98]
On September 30, 2019, Dolan released a report written by Barbara S. Jones, a former judge and prosecutor.[99][100] Her report stated that the archdiocese had completed the process of removing all of its remaining accused clergy from active ministry.[101][102][100] In the same report, Jones recommended that the archdiocese also hire a sex abuse "czar" to vet all complaints.[103][102][100] Jones, who was commissioned by Dolan in 2018 to conduct the review of the church's handling of abuse allegations,[104] also recommended hiring "a compliance officer for the Office of Priest Personnel to monitor its functions and oversee the new document management system".[103] Dolan also backed the Jones Report and stated at a press conference that the archdiocese was expanding its sex abuse policy as well.[100]
On October 10, 2019, Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop John Jenik following an accusation of sex abuse.[105] Appointed auxiliary bishop by Francis in 2014, Jenik also served as vicar for the Northwest Bronx, appointed by Dolan's predecessor Edward Egan in 2006.[106] Jenik, who had submitted his resignation letter upon turning 75 in March 2019,[105] had been out of public ministry since October 2018 after the allegation surfaced.[107]
On May 8, 2020, Cuomo extended the 2019 New York Child Victim Act's statute of limitations deadline to file sex abuse lawsuits. Originally set for August 14, 2020, it was changed to January 14, 2021.[108]
On July 27, 2020, it was revealed that a Catholic priest who served in Orange County was named in a new sex abuse lawsuit.[109] Eight men alleged that Reverend George Boxelaar, who died in 1990, sexually abused them when they were children during the 1970s and 1980s. They added their claims to three other alleged victims of Boxelaar.[109][110] In addition to these new lawsuits, a Scarsdale Catholic school teacher identified as Edwin Gaylor also confessed to committing acts of sex abuse.[111]
On December 3, 2020, Reverend George Rutler, pastor of the Church of St. Michael in Manhattan, was accused by a female security guard of watching pornography and "aggressively" groping her.[112] Rutler denied the charges and offered to temporarily step down as pastor. In May 2021, the District Attorney of Manhattan declined to bring charges against Rutler, dismissing the accusations as "baseless."[113]
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