Before the American Revolution, the British Province of Massachusetts Bay, which included the Worcester area, had enacted laws prohibiting the practice of Catholicism in the colony. It was even illegal for a priest to reside there. To gain the support of Catholics for the Revolution, colonial leaders were forced to make concessions to them. Massachusetts enacted religious freedom for Catholics in 1780.[3]
After the Revolution ended in 1783, Pope Pius VI want to remove American Catholics from the jurisdiction of the Diocese of London. He erected in 1784 the Prefecture Apostolic of the United States, encompassing the entire territory of the new nation. Pius VI created the Diocese of Baltimore, the first diocese in the United States, to replace the prefecture apostolic in 1789.[4]
1808 to 1950
Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Boston in 1808 from the Diocese of Baltimore. The new diocese included all of New England in its jurisdiction.[5] In the 1820s, Irish immigrants began arrived in Worcester County to work on the railroads and construct the Blackstone Canal. St. John's Church was established in 1834 in the City of Worcester. It is the oldest surviving Catholic church in New England outside of Boston.
The College of the Holy Cross was founded in Worcester by Bishop Benedict Fenwick of Boston in 1843. Fenwick had tried to build the college in Boston, but was thwarted by Protestant politicians running the city. He finally decided to locate it in Worcester on existing church property.[6][7]
In 1870, Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Springfield from the Diocese of Boston, including Worcester County.[8] The Worcester area would remain part of the Diocese of Springfield for the next 80 years.
After Flannagan's retirement in 1983, Pope John Paul II appointed Harrington as the new bishop of Worcester. Harrington retired in 1994 and John Paul II appointed Bishop Daniel Reilly from Norwich to succeed him. During his tenure in Worcester, Reilly reopened St. Joseph Parish, but merged it with Notre Dame des Canadiens Parish in Worcester.[10] He raised over $50 million for his Forward in Faith campaign to place the diocese in a stable financial condition.[10]
2004 to present
College of the Holy Cross (2006)St. Joseph Basilica, Webster (2025)
McManus in 2007 criticized the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester for renting out "sacred space" to the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy for workshops. He said that the Alliance taught subjects that violated Catholic teachings. In October 2007, he stated that Holy Cross might lose its designation as a Catholic institution due to this action.[11] Holy Cross President Michael C. McFarland said that the college had contractual obligations to the Alliance and would not cancel its agreement with them.[12]
In April 2012, McManus asked Anna Maria College in Paxton to rescind an invitation to activist Victoria Kennedy to speak at its commencement ceremony, citing her views on abortion rights for women and same sex marriage.[13] In May 2012, the college agreed to disinvite Kennedy, but also disinvited McManus, stating that his presence at the ceremony would be a "distraction".[14]
In June 2012, diocesan officials declined to sell Oakhurst, an historic mansion in Northbridge used as a retreat center, to James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, a married gay couple.[15][16] In September 2012, the couple sued McManus and the diocese for discrimination. They cited an email in which church officials said that McManus wanted to stop the sale "because of the potentiality of gay marriages there."[17][18] In October 2012, the diocese sold the property to a different buyer.[19]
McManus was arrested in 2013 in Narragansett, Rhode Island, for drunken driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and refusing a chemical sobriety test. At 10:30 pm that evening, McManus had collided with another vehicle, then drove away from the scene. The other driver followed him and called the police. They arrested McManus 20 minutes later at his family home in Narragansett, at which point he refused the chemical sobriety test.[20] McManus later pleaded guilty to refusing to take the test, which resulted in a loss of his driver's license for six months, 10 hours of community service and a $945 fine.[21]
In 2017, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the three secrets of Fátima in Portugal, McManus consecrated the diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.[22] The Shrine of Mary, Mother of Persecuted Christians was opened in Clinton in 2022. The shrine was installed with help from Nasarean.org, an organization founded by Benedict Kiely that advocates for Christians facing persecution in the Middle East.[23]
In June 2022, McManus decreed that the Jesuit Nativity School of Worcester could no longer call itself a Catholic school or celebrate mass on its premises. In March 2022, McManus had told the school to take down Black Lives Matter and Gay Pride flags from its facility; the school refused to do it.[24] After hundreds of College of the Holy Cross students signed a petition asking the administration to bar McManus from their commencement ceremony due to his action against Jesuit Nativity, McManus voluntarily decided not to attend. In August 2023, the two religious order operating St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury and Notre Dame Academy in Worcester wrote to McManus, saying that they would reject his policies on LGBTQ and transgender students. They stated that the existing school policies on those subjects were sufficient.[25]
As of 2025, McManus is the current bishop of Worcester.
Sexual abuse
In 1995, Phil Saviano settled a lawsuit with the Diocese of Worcester, which after attorney fees amounted to $5,700. He alleged being sexually molested by Reverend David A. Holley, a pastor at St. Denis Parish in Douglas for one year during the 1970s. Two years before the legal action, in 1993, Saviano had read that Holley had been convicted of child sexual penetration of several boys in Alamogordo, New Mexico and sentenced to 275 years in prison.[26] In August 1997, the Dallas Morning News released a 1968 letter sent by Bishop Flanagan to Jerome Hayden, a Catholic therapist in Holliston.[27] In his letter, Flanagan stated that Holley:
"...has been ... [accused of] molesting teenage boys on at least two occasions—most recently in a hospital from which he has been barred—and with carrying around and showing to these boys pornographic magazines and books. Although the ... [accusations] were established beyond any doubt in the judgment of the priests who assisted me in the investigation as well as myself, Father has denied any wrongdoing."[27]
In 1970, the diocese transferred Holley for treatment to the Seton Institute in Baltimore, Maryland without notifying law enforcement. After his treatment was finished, Flanagan refused to let Holley return to Worcester.[27] Holley eventually ended up in dioceses in Texas and New Mexico.
Reverend Lowe B. Dongor was indicted in September 2011 on processing child pornography and stealing money from St. Joseph’s Parish in Fitchburg to send to his family in the Philippines.[28] After briefly fleeing to the Philippines, Dongor returned to Worcester, where he pleaded guilty and received five years of probation.[29]
In 2013, Eran J. McManemy, one of Holley's victims in New Mexico, sued the Diocese of Worcester for allowing Holley to serve in other parts of the United States while knowing he was a pedophile.[30] In May 2020, the Albuquerque Journal reported that the Diocese of Worcester was being sued by another Holley victim from New Mexico.[31][32] The lawsuit, which named other dioceses in which Holley served, stated that the Diocese of Worcester deserved "most of the blame."[32]
In October 2020, Bishop McManus and the diocese were named in a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by a former parishioner.[33] The plaintiff alleged that Reverend Thomas E. Mahoney had groomed and abused him and other boys in the early 1970s in Worcester and Boylston. The lawsuit accused the diocese of failing to stop Mahoney's alleged crimes. After the lawsuit was filed, McManus suspended Mahoney, already retired, from any ministerial duties.[33]
In December 2022, Nicole Bell, sued the diocese, claiming that she and other women had been sexually abused by William Riley, the food for the poor coordinator at St. John’s Parish. She said that in the early 2010's Riley would coerce her into having sex with him. Bell accused the diocese and the pastor of St. John's of covering up for Riley. The diocese suspended Riley after receiving the complaint and he quit soon after that.[34]
The diocese in February 2023 release a list of 173 credible accusations of sexual abuse against clergy in the diocese. The list did not include the names of accused clergy.[35]
In 2004, Bishop Reilly grouped parishes into "clusters".[36][37] The purpose of this system is to allow communities to come together for regional events. Also, priests may substitute for one another at a particular parish.
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