Diocese of Shreveport Dioecesis Sreveportuensis in Louisiana | |
---|---|
Location | |
Country | United States |
Territory | 16 parishes of Louisiana |
Ecclesiastical province | Archdiocese of New Orleans |
Statistics | |
Area | 28,825 km2 (11,129 sq mi) |
Population - Catholics | 39,436 (5%) |
Information | |
Denomination | Catholic |
Sui iuris church | Latin Church |
Rite | Roman Rite |
Established | June 16, 1986 |
Cathedral | Cathedral of Saint John Berchmans |
Patron saint | Immaculate Conception [ citation needed ] |
Current leadership | |
Pope | Francis |
Bishop | Francis I. Malone |
Metropolitan Archbishop | Gregory Michael Aymond |
Map | |
Website | |
dioshpt.org |
The Diocese of Shreveport (Latin : Dioecesis Sreveportuensis in Louisiana) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church covering the parishes of northern Louisiana in the United States.
The Diocese of Shreveport is a suffragan diocese of the metropolitan Archdiocese of New Orleans. Its mother church is the Cathedral of Saint John Berchmans, in Shreveport. The current bishop is Francis Malone.
The Diocese of Shreveport covers an area of 28,825 square kilometres (11,129 sq mi). [1] The largest cities in the diocese are Shreveport, Monroe, Bossier City and Ruston.
As of 2023, the Catholic population of the diocese was 37,986, served by 37 active diocesan priests, 14 religious priests, 31 permanent deacons and 19 nuns. The diocese covered 27 parishes and 10 missions. [2]
The first Catholic missionary arrived in northwestern Louisiana from East Texas in 1717. The Franciscan priest Antonio Margil encountered Adaes Native Americans near present-day Robeline. At the tribe's request, he constructed the Mission of San Miguel de Linares, the first Catholic church in the region. Margil then journeyed to Natchitoches to minister to the French Catholics population there. [3]
After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, all of present-day Louisiana became part of the United States. At that time, the new State of Louisiana was part of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, with its see city as New Orleans. In 1825, the Vatican renamed this diocese as the Diocese of New Orleans. The town of Shreveport was founded in 1836.
In 1853, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Natchitoches, removing the Shreveport area and most of Louisiana from the Diocese of New Orleans. Father Jean Pierre, parish priest at Bayou Pierre in Louisiana, started visiting Shreveport in 1856. He later persuaded Natchitoches Bishop Augustus M. Martin to move the Bayou Pierre parish to Shreveport, which happened later in 1856. [3] After working as a tutor to Protestant families for a year, Pierre built a wooden church in Shreveport. He completed a brick church in 1858. By 1869, Pierre estimated that there was a Catholic population of 1,000 in his parish. [3]
On his return from the First Vatican Council in 1870, Bishop of Natchitoches, Martin stopped in Brittany to recruit missioners. Five of those who responded, including Jean Pierre, died at Shreveport in the yellow fever epidemic of 1873.
In 1910, Pope Pius X erected the Diocese of Alexandria, which included the Shreveport area. In 1976, Pope Paul VI renamed the Diocese of Alexandria to Diocese of Alexandria-Shreveport. The Church of St. John Berchmans in Shreveport became a co-cathedral in that city.
Pope John Paul II erected the Diocese of Shreveport on June 16, 1986, taking its present territory from the Diocese of Alexandria-Shreveport. He appointed Auxiliary Bishop William Friend of Alexandria-Shreveport as the first bishop of Shreveport. Friend designated the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans in Shreveport as the cathedral church of the new diocese. Friend retired in 2006.
The second bishop of Shreveport was Reverend Michael Duca from the Diocese of Dallas, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008. Pope Francis named him bishop of the Diocese of Baton Rouge in 2018. [4] Rev. Peter Mangum served as administrator until the appointment of Francis Malone from the Diocese of Little Rock. [5] Malone was named by Pope Francis in 2019. [6] [7] [8]
In 2020, the diocese has approved commencement of a cause for their canonization of Father Jean Pierre, a pioneer priest from the 19th century. Pierre and his colleagues have each been titled Servant of God. [9] [10]
In December 2022, Father Rothwell Price, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, was named a Chaplain of His Holiness, with the title of Monsignor. [11]
A Tennessee man sued Reverend Donald Dickerson and the Jesuit Order in November 2010, claimed that he had been sexually abused by Dickerson. The assaults allegedly took place at St. John Berchmans Cathedral in Shreveport in 1982 before the diocese was erected. [12] He was also accused of sexually assaulting high school students from the Diocese of Dallas. The Jesuit Order expelled Dickerson in 1986 and he was later defrocked by the Vatican. [13]
The diocese reported in 2018 that it had received no allegations of sexual abuse from its founding in 1986 to 2018. [14] In 2020, the diocese was sued by a man who claimed it shielded a priest who sexually abused him as a child in the 1970s. [15]
In May 2021, Reverend Seby Shan Chemmampallil from Christ The King Church in Bossier City was arrested on two counts each of possession of pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13, distribution of pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13 and sexual abuse of animals. The diocese immediately suspended him from ministry. [16]
|
As of 2023, the Diocese of Shreveport had two high schools and four elementary schools.
The Diocese of Shreveport publishes a monthly magazine, The Catholic Connection. [18]
The Diocese of Alexandria in Louisiana is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in central Louisiana in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of New Orleans.
The Diocese of Baton Rouge, is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese in the Florida Parishes region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of New Orleans. The current bishop is Michael Duca.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans is a Latin Church ecclesiastical division of the Catholic Church spanning Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, and Washington civil parishes of southeastern Louisiana. It is the second to the Archdiocese of Baltimore in age among the present dioceses in the United States, having been elevated to the rank of diocese on April 25, 1793, during Spanish colonial rule.
The Diocese of Lake Charles, is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in southwestern Louisiana in the United States. It is a suffragan see of the metropolitan Archdiocese of New Orleans.
The Diocese of Houma–Thibodaux is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in southeastern Louisiana. It covers Terrebonne, Lafourche, and the eastern part of St. Mary parishes, Morgan City, and Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish. Although a small diocese in terms of area, it has a large Catholic population, with approximately 126,000 Catholics out of a total population of 202,000. The diocese includes part of Cajun Louisiana.
The Diocese of Buffalo is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in Western New York in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese within the metropolitan province of the Archdiocese of New York.
The Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana is a Latin Catholic ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. The diocese was erected by the Vatican in 1918, and its current bishop is J. Douglas Deshotel. Covering St. Landry, Evangeline, Lafayette, St. Martin, Iberia, St. Mary, Acadia, and Vermilion parishes with exception to Morgan City of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux), the diocese is divided into four deaneries.
The Diocese of Natchitoches was a Latin Church residential episcopal see of the Catholic Church from 1853 to 1910 and is now a titular see.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington is a Latin Church diocese in Northern Kentucky in the United States. The cathedral church of the diocese is the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington.
The Diocese of Springfield–Cape Girardeau is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in southern Missouri in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Saint Louis.
Michael Gerard Duca is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has been serving as bishop of the Diocese of Baton Rouge in Louisiana since his installation on August 24, 2018. He previously served as the bishop of the Diocese of Shreveport in Louisiana from 2008 to 2018.
Augustus Marie Martin was a French-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the first bishop of the Diocese of Natchitoches in Louisiana from 1853 until 1875.
The Cathedral of Saint John Berchmans is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Shreveport, in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States. It is one of only eight parish churches in the world dedicated to the Jesuit Saint John Berchmans. In 2016, the cathedral acquired relics of the heart of St. John Berchmans from the Jesuit order in Belgium, displayed in a reliquary near the main altar.
John Clement Favalora is an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Miami from 1994 to 2010 and as bishop of the Diocese of Alexandria in Louisiana from 1986 to 1989 and as bishop of the Diocese of St. Petersburg in Florida from 1989 to 1994
Anthony Durier was a French-born American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the third bishop of the Diocese of Natchitoches in Louisianan from 1885 until his death in 1904.
Cornelius Van de Ven was a Dutch-born American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the fourth Bishop of Alexandria in Louisiana from 1910 until his death in 1932. He previously served as bishop of the Diocese of Natchitoches in Louisiana from 1904 until its dissolution in 1910.
John Douglas Deshotel is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has been serving as bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana since 2016. He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Dallas in Texas from 2010 to 2016.
Francis Ignatius Malone is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has been serving as bishop for the Diocese of Shreveport in Louisiana since 2019.
The Shreveport Martyrs are five Roman Catholic priests who died while caring for strangers afflicted in the 1873 Yellow Fever Epidemic of Shreveport, Louisiana. All five were missionary priests from Brittany, France who came to serve the Diocese of Natchitoches under Augustus Marie Martin They are : Isidore Quémerais of Pleine-Fougères, Jean Pierre of Lanloup, Jean-Marie Biler of Plourivo, Louis Gergaud of Heric, and Francois Le Vézouët of Brélidy.
Jean Pierre was one of five Breton missionary priests to Louisiana who made a sacrifice of their lives in the 1873 Yellow Fever Epidemic in Shreveport, Louisiana. The group is collectively known as the Shreveport Martyrs. On December 8, 2020, Bishop Francis Malone of the Diocese of Shreveport declared him to be a Servant of God, opening the diocesan phase of inquiry into a Cause of Beatification and Canonization. In 2022, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Causes of Saints permitted Father Pierre and the other four Shreveport Martyrs to proceed for consideration as a single Cause. Peter B. Mangum serves as the Episcopal Delegate for the Cause.