Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington
The Archdiocese of Washington is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in the United States. Its territorial remit encompasses the District of Columbia and the counties of Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George's and Saint Mary's in the state of Maryland. It was originally part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
Metropolitan Archdiocese of Washington Archidiœcesis Metropolitae Vashingtonensis | |
|---|---|
Coat of arms | |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| Territory | District of Columbia plus counties of Montgomery, Prince George's, St. Mary's, Calvert, and Charles in Maryland[1] |
| Ecclesiastical province | Washington |
| Headquarters | Hyattsville, Maryland |
| Statistics | |
| Area | 2,104 sq mi (5,450 km2) |
| Population - Total - Catholics | (as of 2017) 2,980,005 655,601[2] (22.0%) |
| Parishes | 139 |
| Schools | 93 |
| Information | |
| Denomination | Catholic Church |
| Sui iuris church | Latin Church |
| Rite | Roman Rite |
| Established | July 29, 1939[3][4] (83 years ago) |
| Cathedral | Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle |
| Patron saint | Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception[5] |
| Secular priests | 262 |
| Current leadership | |
| Pope | Francis |
| Metropolitan Archbishop | Wilton Daniel Gregory |
| Auxiliary Bishops | Roy Edward Campbell Juan Esposito-Garcia Evelio Menjivar-Ayala |
| Bishops emeritus | Donald William Wuerl Francisco González Valer |
| Map | |
| Website | |
| adw.org | |
The archdiocese crosses a state line. Three other U.S. Latin Church dioceses (Wilmington, Norwich and Gallup) also do this, but they each have territory in more than one state.[citation needed]
The Archdiocese of Washington is home to The Catholic University of America, the only national university operated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)[6] and Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher education in the country.
In addition, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, a minor basilica dedicated to the nation's patroness, the Immaculate Conception, is located within it, and it is not the archdiocesan cathedral (nor even a parish of the archdiocese). The cathedral of the archdiocese is the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in downtown Washington.
Prelature
The ordinary of the Archdiocese of Washington is an archbishop whose cathedra is in the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in the City of Washington and who is metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of Washington. Its sole suffragan see is the Diocese of Saint Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands.
The first Archbishop of Washington was Michael Joseph Curley, appointed in 1939.[7] Eight years later, on November 15, 1947, the archdiocese received its first residential archbishop, with the appointment of Patrick Aloysius O'Boyle. Donald Wuerl served as the most recent ordinary of the archdiocese. Wuerl resigned as Archbishop of Washington on October 12, 2018, in the wake of revelations about his poor handling of incidents of sex abuse when he served as Bishop of Pittsburgh.[8] However, Wuerl still led the archdiocese as apostolic administrator until a successor was installed.[9][10]
On April 4, 2019, Wilton Daniel Gregory was appointed archbishop by Pope Francis.[11][12] The same day, the Archdiocese of Washington announced that Gregory would be installed as the seventh Archbishop of Washington.[13] Gregory, who was originally scheduled to be installed on May 17, 2019,[13] was installed on May 21, 2019, becoming the first African American to lead the Archdiocese of Washington.[14] Pope Francis raised Wilton Daniel Gregory to the rank of cardinal at a consistory held in Rome on November 28, 2020. He is the first American with African ancestry to become a Roman Catholic cardinal.
History
On March 25, 1634, the first Catholic Mass in the English-speaking colonies was celebrated by Andrew White on St. Clement's Island, Maryland, in what is now part of the Archdiocese of Washington.[15] The Catholic founders of the Maryland settlement then established the colony as a place of religious freedom. During the colonial era, however, when others took power, Catholics would become a persecuted people suffering the wrath of oppression allowed by local penal laws.[15]
Upon the founding of the United States, a Jesuit priest, John Carroll, was elected head of the missionary territory (later Prefecture Apostolic) of the United States. In 1789 the Diocese of Baltimore (later the Archdiocese of Baltimore) was established with Carroll as its first bishop, and given ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the entire nation.[16]
On July 22, 1939, Pope Pius XII created the Archdiocese of Washington from territory which was then within the Archdiocese of Baltimore, with a single prelate serving as the archbishop of both archdioceses, two ecclesiastical jurisdictions united in persona episcopi.[17][4][15] The Archdiocese dates its founding from 1939.[18] On November 15, 1947, Pope Pius appointed Washington's first residential archbishop.[4][15] The Archdiocese of Washington became a metropolitan see on October 12, 1965, when the Diocese of Saint Thomas became its only suffragan see.
Sex abuse scandal
On September 26, 2018, it was announced that the Archdiocese of Washington was now one of four American Catholic dioceses under investigation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for reports of sex abuse.[19] Accused former cardinal and Washington archbishop Theodore McCarrick had served in each diocese.[19] On October 15, 2018, the Archdiocese of Washington released the names of 31 clergy who served in the archdiocese and were credibly accused of sexually abusing minors since 1948.[20][21][22] On August 15, 2019, archdiocesan priest Urbano Vazquez was convicted of four counts of sexual abuse involving two girls.[23] On November 22, 2019, Vazquez was sentenced to 15 years in prison.[24]
In October 2019, the Washington Post reported that police were investigating an allegation that the former Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, Michael Joseph Bransfield, had molested a 9-year-old girl during a September 2012 pilgrimage to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., while on a trip led by Bransfield.[25] Prior to being appointed bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in 2004, Bransfield long served at the Basilica, being named assistant director and director of liturgy (1980), director of finance (1982), and director (1986) at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.[26][27] The Archdiocese of Washington was subpoenaed for documents in connection with the investigation.[25] Bransfield denied the allegation.[25] In December 2019, the Washington Post revealed that Bransfield had paid $350,000 to Holy See and church officials during a sex abuse probe against him.[28][29] The "hush money" payments involved acts of sex abuse he reportedly committed when he was at the Basilica in the 1980s.[28][29] The same report also revealed that during his time as Archbishop of Washington, McCarrick used his "Archbishop's Special Fund" to make similar hush money payments in order to cover acts of sex abuse he had committed in other Catholic dioceses.[28][29][30] The archdiocese took in nearly a third less money in its 2019 annual fundraising appeal, which had been renamed from "Cardinal's Appeal" to "Annual Appeal", in the wake of the scandals.[31]
Bishops
The list of bishops and their terms of service:
Archbishops of Washington
- Michael Joseph Curley (1939–1947), concurrently the Archbishop of Baltimore
- Patrick Aloysius O'Boyle (1947–1973)
- William Wakefield Baum (1973–1980), appointed Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education and later Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary
- James Aloysius Hickey (1980–2000)
- Theodore Edgar McCarrick (2001–2006; former cardinal, laicized for sexual abuse)[32]
- Donald William Wuerl (2006–2018)
- Wilton Daniel Gregory (2019–present)
Auxiliary bishops
- John Michael McNamara (1947–1960)
- Patrick Joseph McCormick (1950–1953)Cathedra in St. Matthew's Cathedral, with Michael Joseph Curley's coat of arms permanently affixed
- Philip Matthew Hannan (1956–1965), appointed Archbishop of New Orleans
- William Joseph McDonald (1964–1967), appointed Auxiliary Bishop of San Francisco
- John Selby Spence (1964–1973)
- Edward John Herrmann (1966–1973), appointed Bishop of Columbus
- Thomas William Lyons (1974–1988)
- Eugene Antonio Marino (1974–1988), appointed Archbishop of Atlanta
- Thomas Cajetan Kelly (1977–1981), appointed Archbishop of Louisville
- Alvaro Corrada del Rio (1985–1997), appointed Apostolic Administrator of Caguas and later Bishop of Tyler and Bishop of Mayaguez
- William George Curlin (1988–1994), appointed Bishop of Charlotte
- Leonard Olivier (1988–2004)
- William E. Lori (1995–2001), appointed Bishop of Bridgeport and later Archbishop of Baltimore
- Kevin Joseph Farrell (2001–2007), appointed Bishop of Dallas and later Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life (elevated to cardinal in 2016)
- Francisco González Valer, S.F. (2001–2014)
- Martin Holley (2004–2016), appointed Bishop of Memphis
- Barry Christopher Knestout (2008–2018), appointed Bishop of Richmond
- Mario E. Dorsonville (2015–2023), appointed Bishop of Houma–Thibodaux
- Roy Edward Campbell (2017–present)
- Michael William Fisher (2018–2020), appointed Bishop of Buffalo
- Juan Esposito-Garcia (2023-present)
- Evelio Menjivar-Ayala (2023-present)
Other priests of the diocese who became bishops
- John Francis Donoghue, appointed Bishop of Charlotte in 1984 and later Archbishop of Atlanta
- David Edward Foley, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Richmond in 1986 and later Bishop of Birmingham
- Raymond James Boland, appointed Bishop of Birmingham in 1988 and later Bishop of Kansas City-Saint Joseph
- Mark Edward Brennan, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Baltimore in 2016 and later Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston
- William D. Byrne, appointed Bishop of Springfield in Massachusetts in 2020
Parishes
Schools
The archdiocese centralized school administration as part of its Center City Consortium, which was established in 1997.[33]
- High schools
- Academy of the Holy Cross, Kensington, MD
- Archbishop Carroll High School, DC
- The Avalon School, Gaithersburg, MD
- Bishop McNamara High School, Forestville, MD
- Brookewood School, Kensington, MD
- Connelly School of the Holy Child, Potomac, MD
- DeMatha Catholic High School, Hyattsville, MD
- Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School, Takoma Park, MD
- Elizabeth Seton High School, Bladensburg, MD
- Georgetown Preparatory School, North Bethesda, MD
- Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, DC
- Gonzaga College High School, DC
- The Heights School, Potomac, MD (Under jurisdiction of the Prelature of Opus Dei)
- Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, Olney, MD
- St. Anselm's Abbey School, DC
- St. John's College High School, DC
- St. Mary's Ryken High School, Leonardtown, MD
- St. Vincent Pallotti High School, Laurel, MD
- Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, Bethesda, MD
Colleges
Colleges and universities
Seminaries
Archdiocesan cemeteries
In addition to the nearly four dozen of its parishes which have their own cemeteries,[34] the archdiocese owns and operates five major cemeteries:[35]
- Mount Olivet Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
- Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Silver Spring, Maryland
- St. Mary's Queen of Peace Cemetery, Helen, Maryland
- Resurrection Cemetery, Clinton, Maryland
- All Souls Cemetery, Germantown, Maryland
Two former parish cemeteries are also operated by the archdiocese:
- St. John's Cemetery, Forest Glen, Maryland
- St. Mary's Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
Province of Washington, D.C.
See also
- Catholic Church in the United States
- Ecclesiastical Province of Washington
- Global organisation of the Catholic Church
- List of Roman Catholic archdioceses (by country and continent)
- List of Roman Catholic dioceses (alphabetical) (including archdioceses)
- List of Roman Catholic dioceses (structured view) (including archdioceses)
- List of the Catholic cathedrals of the United States
- List of the Catholic dioceses of the United States
- Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America
- St. Mary's City, Maryland
References
- ^ "Archdiocese of Washington".
- ^ "Statistics". Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington. December 6, 2016. Retrieved December 18, 2016.
- ^ "75th Anniversary". Archdiocese of Washington. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, then-archbishop of Washington, celebrated a special Mass for the 75th anniversary of the Archdiocese of Washington at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle on September 21, 2014.
- ^ a b c Although the archdiocese was created on July 29, 1939, it shared its first archbishop with the Archdiocese of Baltimore — Archbishop Curley — who continued to administer the two archdioceses as a single unit, until Washington's first residential archbishop was appointed on November 15, 1947. Most Rev. Michael J. Curley February 21, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. Archdiocese of Baltimore. Retrieved on November 19, 2016. Archbishops of the Modern Era November 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. Archdiocese of Baltimore. Retrieved on 2016-11-19.
- ^ "Coat of Arms".
- ^ "About Us". The Catholic University of America. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
- ^ Acta Apostolicae Sedis (PDF). Vol. XXXI. 1939. p. 691. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
- ^ Chappell, Bill (12 October 2018). "Pope Accepts Resignation Of D.C. Archbishop Donald Wuerl Amid Sex Abuse Crisis". NPR.org.
- ^ "So Long, Cardinal Wuerl | Ed Condon". First Things.
- ^ White, Christopher (October 12, 2018). "Wuerl resigns amid papal praise, will stay as interim administrator". Crux. Retrieved December 19, 2018.
- ^ "Resignations and Appointments". press.vatican.va.
- ^ "Pope Francis appoints new Archbishop for Washington - Vatican News". www.vaticannews.va. April 4, 2019.
- ^ a b "Pope Francis Names Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory as New Archbishop of Washington". Archdiocese of Washington.
- ^ "Wilton Gregory installed as new archbishop of Washington". spectrumlocalnews.com.
- ^ a b c d About Us. Archdiocese of Washington. Retrieved November 19, 2016.
- ^ "Prefect Apostolic". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
- ^ Acta Apostolicae Sedis (PDF). Vol. XXXI. 1939. pp. 668–70. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
- ^ "Historic Moments". Archdiocese of Washington. Retrieved 2022-02-02.
- ^ a b "Bishops to investigate 4 dioceses after Pope nixes Vatican McCarrick probe". cruxnow.com. 26 September 2018. Retrieved 2022-02-02.
- ^ Boorstein, Michelle; Zauzmer, Julie. "Washington Catholic Archdiocese releases names of 31 clergy members 'credibly accused' since 1948 of sexually abusing minors" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
- ^ Lam, Kristin. "Washington Catholic Archdiocese names of 31 priests credibly accused of abuse since 1948". USA Today.
- ^ "Washington diocese names 31 ex-clergy accused of abuse". www.aljazeera.com.
- ^ Alexander, Keith L. "Catholic priest found guilty of sexually abusing girls at his D.C. parish" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
- ^ Wagner, Paul (November 22, 2019). "DC priest sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexually abusing kids at Shrine of the Sacred Heart". FOX 5 DC.
- ^ a b c Shawn Boburg & Robert O'Harrow Jr., Former W.Va. bishop Michael Bransfield is under police investigation for alleged abuse of 9-year-old girl on church trip, Washington Post (October 3, 2019).
- ^ Rutkowski, Ryan (2010). Catholic West Virginia. Arcadia Publishing. p. 20. ISBN 9780738586397. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ "Bishop Michael J. Bransfield". Bishop Accountability. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ a b c Boburg, Shawn; Robert Jr, O'Harrow; Harlan, Chico. "Ousted cardinal McCarrick gave more than $600,000 to fellow clerics, including two popes, records show" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
- ^ a b c "Report says McCarrick fund gave more than $600,000 to clerics, two popes". Catholic San Francisco.
- ^ "Washington Post: Former Newark archbishop accused of abuse gave more than $600K to fellow clerics". News 12 - New Jersey.
- ^ Donations to D.C. Catholic archdiocese's key appeal down nearly a third after year of controversy (Washington Post)
- ^ Zauzmer, Julie; Boorstein, Michelle; Hedgpeth, Dana. "Cardinal McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, accused of sexual abuse and removed from ministry" – via www.washingtonpost.com.
- ^ Palestini, Robert H. (2008-09-24). Catholic School Administration: Theory, Practice, Leadership. DEStech Publications, Inc. p. 315. ISBN 9781885432445.
- ^ Parish Cemeteries from the official website of the Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Washington
- ^ History from the official website of the Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Washington
External links
- Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington Official Site
- Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle
- Alphabetical Listing of Parishes 2009-01-01 at the Wayback Machine
Coordinates: 38°57′11″N 76°59′7.4″W / 38.95306°N 76.985389°W