The Diocese of St. Augustine (Latin: Dioecesis Sancti Augustini) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory of the Catholic Church, located in the northeastern section of Florida in the United States. It includes the cities of St. Augustine, Jacksonville, and Gainesville.
On March 11, 1870, the Vatican erected the Diocese of St. Augustine. It covered most of the Florida peninsula until the 1950s, when Florida's expanding population necessitated the creation of new dioceses.
History
1500 to 1850
In the mid-1500s, present day Florida became a Spanish colony. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565 established the Nombre de Dios Mission in St. Augustine. His company included four priests, who were tasked to evangelize the Native American tribes. These priests celebrated the first mass in what would become the United States.
The Diocese of Santiago de Cuba established the first parish in the future United States in St. Augustine, appointing Martin Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales as its first priest. Pending the arrival of regular missionaries, Menéndez appointed several soldiers to provide religious instruction to the Native Americans.
After the signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris to end the Seven Years War, the British took control of the Spanish colonies in Florida, prompting many Catholic settlers to leave.[1] In 1783, after the end of the American Revolution, the British returned all of Florida to Spain and Catholic settlers began returning to the area.
In 1821, Spain ceded all of Florida to the United States. Four years later, the Vatican created the new Vicariate Apostolic of Alabama and Florida and named Michael Portier as the apostolic vicar.[2]
1850 to 1870
While in Europe, Vérot also secured funding to repair churches in St. Augustine and elsewhere in Florida. Florida. He also built new churches in Tampa, Fernandina Beach and Tallahassee.[3] Three Christian Brothers from Canada opened a boys' school in St. Augustine.[3]
During the American Civil War, Vérot condemned the looting of the Catholic church at Amelia Island, Florida, by Union Army troops. He personally evacuated several Sisters of Mercy from Jacksonville to Savannah through the battle zone in Georgia.[4] After the war, Vérot published a pastoral letter urging Catholics in the diocese to "put away all prejudice... against their former servants". In 1866, the Sisters of St. Joseph were introduced from France, and despite the most adverse conditions, they had several flourishing schools and academies in operation before many years.
1870 to 1900
On March 11, 1870, Pius IX elevated the Vicariate of Florida into the Diocese of St. Augustine and named Vérot as its first bishop.[5] The new diocese covered all of Florida except for the Florida Panhandle region. Vérot died in 1876. In 1877, Pius IX named Reverend John Moore of Charleston as the second bishop of St. Augustine.
A contingent of Benedictine monks arrived in San Antonio, Florida, in 1886 initially to serve German immigrants. In 1887, a yellow fever outbreak in Florida killed several priests in the diocese. That same year, a fire destroyed the Cathedral of St. Augustine. At Moore's request, a group of Jesuit fathers arrived in Tampa, Florida, in 1888 to replace the priests lost to illness.[6] In August 1888, the St. Mary's Home for Orphan Girls was opened in Jacksonville, Florida. That same year, yellow fever broke out again in Jacksonville. With the local priest William J. Kenny sidelined by the disease, Moore rushed there to run the parish and tend to the sick.[6]
Catholic Heritage of Florida Plaque in Cathedral-Basilica
In 1889, Moore asked the Benedictines to establish several mission churches on the Florida Gulf Coast from Pasco County northward. He requested that the Jesuits cover Hillsborough County southward to Key West.[6] Moore died in 1901.
1900 to 1920
In 1902, Monsignor William Kenny was appointed as the third bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine by Pope Leo XIII. During his tenure as bishop, Kenny increased the recruitment of Irish priests and nuns, reorganized diocesan offices, expanded missionary efforts to Florida's interior and smaller towns, and more than doubled diocesan fundraising.[7] He also established the first Catholic parish for African Americans in the state.[7] In 1913, the Florida Legislature had passed legislation prohibiting white women from teaching African-American children, a measure aimed at non-segregated Catholic schools. Considering the law unconstitutional, Kenny told his teaching nuns to ignore it. Kenny died in 1913.
The next bishop of St. Augustine was Reverend Michael Curley, named by Pope Pius X in 1914. In 1916, Florida Governor Park Trammell ordered the arrest of three Sisters of St. Joseph for violating the law on teaching African-American children. Curley vigorously attacked their arrests as part of a campaign against Catholic schools, gaining strong support from other Catholic prelates in the United States.[8][9]
Curley attracted national attention in 1917 by successfully battling a bill in the Florida Legislature that would have mandated inspections of convents.[10][11][12] Curley refused to comply with it.[9] He led a successful legal campaign to have the law declared unconstitutional.[12] He also sought to educate Floridians about Catholicism and demonstrate the bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan.[9] By the end of his tenure, the Catholic population of the diocese had grown from 39,000 to 41,000, with 40 new churches built.[12] In 1921, Pope Benedict XV named Curley as the new archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
1920 to 2000
In 1922, Monsignor Patrick Barry was appointed the fifth bishop of St. Augustine by Pope Pius XI.[13] In 1931, Barry instituted an annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Leche at the Mission Nombre de Dios in order to draw attention to the heritage of the Catholic Church in St. Augustine. In 1940, Barry founded Barry University in Miami Shores along with his family members.[14] Barry died in 1940 after 18 years in office.
Pius XII named Monsignor Joseph Hurley of the Diocese of Cleveland as the next bishop of St. Augustine. In 1958, Pius XII erected the Diocese of Miami, taking its territory in South Florida from the Diocese of Augustine.[15] Hurley was a staunch opponent of the American Civil Rights actions during the 1960s, even avoiding Martin Luther King Jr. at the airport when their paths crossed unexpectedly. King would eventually write Hurley a letter requesting his support for the movement, but failed to gain it.[16] Hurley died in 1967.
Estévez initiated the first ecumenical vespers at the bishop-level in Florida in 2014 at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. The service was attended by Protestant and Orthodox leaders, clergy and lay people. He attended the installation of Bishop Robert Schaefer of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America near Tampa, Florida. He collaborated with local Eastern Orthodox Christian leaders in support of the meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew in Jerusalem in 2014. In 2019, Estévez announced that the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, located in the Nombre de Dios mission, had been designated by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops as a national shrine.[17] Estévez retired in 2022.
The current bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine is Bishop Erik T. Pohlmeier from the Diocese of Little Rock, appointed by Pope Francis in 2022
Sex abuse
The parents of an 11-year-old girl met with Bishop Snyder in 1991 to say that their daughter told them she had been sexually assaulted by Reverend William Malone. Snyder had dismissed the allegations because the girl did not attend the meeting. However, in 1992, Snyder moved Malone to a different parish in Palm Coast. When Malone transferred back to New York that same year, the diocese learned that he had impregnated another girl. Snyder secretly arranged child support payments from the diocese to the girl.[18]
In 2003, the woman who accused Malone in 1991 repeated her allegations to Bishop Galeone. He never submitted the accusation to the diocesan review board, nor contacted the local district attorney. She returned to the diocese in 2018 with the same accusations. This time, the review board looked at the allegations and deemed them credible.[18] After Malone was publicly listed with credible accusations, three more women in 2019 accused him of sexual abuse.
In March 2020, the diocese removed Reverend John H. Dux from ministry after determining that sex abuse allegations against him from 1976 were credible.[19] His accuser, Patrick Colville, said that Dux took him when he was 14 to the Florida State Fair near Tampa in 1976. That night in a hotel room, Dux forced Colville to perform oral sex.[20] A second man came forward to accuse Dux of similar alleged crimes between 1980 and 1982 at St. Madeleine Sophie in High Springs.[20]
In November 2020, the state of Florida released a list of 97 Catholic priests who were "credibly accused" of committing sex abuse, with five accused of committing sex abuse while serving in the diocese.[21] However, a total of 13 priests on this statewide list were tied to the diocese.[22]
Coat of arms of Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine
Notes
Arms was designed and adopted when the diocese was erected
Adopted
1870
Escutcheon
The diocesan coats of arms has a background of red (gules) and silver (argent) quarters. It displays a flaming heart pierced by a gold arrow.
Symbolism
The red and silver background represent the fields of Castile and Leon in Spain. The flaming heart pierced by the gold arrow is the traditional emblem of Augustine of Hippo, symbolizing his quotation from Confessions, Chapter 1: "Our hearts shall ever restless be, until they find their rest in Thee."
The Archdiocese of St. Louis is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church that covers the City of St. Louis and the Missouri counties of Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, Perry, Saint Charles, Saint Francois, Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis, Warren, and Washington. It is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province containing three suffragan sees: Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, the Diocese of Jefferson City, and the Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph. It is led by Archbishop, Mitchell Thomas Rozanski, formerly the Bishop of Springfield in Massachusetts.
The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Baltimore is the archdiocese of the Latin Church of the Catholic Church in northern and western Maryland in the United States. It is the metropolitan see of the Ecclesiastical Province of Baltimore.
Michael Joseph Curley was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the first archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington (1939–1947). He served as the tenth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in Maryland (1921–1947) and as bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida (1914–1921).
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 Charlotte is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in western North Carolina in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Atlanta.
The Diocese of Savannah is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in southern Georgia in the United States. The mother church of the diocese is Cathedral Basilica of Saint John the Baptist in Savannah. The patron saint is John the Baptist.
The Diocese of Springfield in Massachusetts is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in Western Massachusetts in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Boston.
The Diocese of Grand Rapids is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in western Michigan in the United States. It comprises 80 parishes in 11 counties. It is a suffragan see to the Archdiocese of Detroit. The mother church of the diocese is the Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Grand Rapids. On April 18, 2013, Pope Francis appointed David J. Walkowiak to be the twelfth bishop of Grand Rapids.
The Diocese of Orlando is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in central Florida in the United States. St. James Cathedral serves as the seat of the diocese. The current bishop is John Gerard Noonan.
The Catholic Diocese of Pensacola–Tallahassee is a Latin Church diocese in the Florida Panhandle region of the United States. The patron saint of the diocese is St. Michael the Archangel.
The Diocese of Saint Petersburg is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the Tampa Bay region of Gulf Coast Florida.
Robert Joseph Baker is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama from 2007 to 2019 and as bishop of the Diocese of Charleston in South Carolina from 1999 to 2007
John Moore was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the second bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 1877 to 1901.
Victor Benito Galeone was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 2001 to 2011.
John Joseph Snyder was an American prelate of the Catholic Church, He served as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 1979 to 2000. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn in New York from 1972 to 1979
Joseph Patrick Hurley was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 1940 until his death in 1967.
Jean Marcel Pierre Auguste Vérot, known commonly as Augustin Vérot was a French-born American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as the first bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida (1870–1876).
Patrick Joseph Barry DD was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 1922 until his death in 1940.
Felipe de Jesús Estévez is a Cuban-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who was bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida from 2011 to 2022. Estévez previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Miami in Florida from 2003 to 2011.
Erik Thomas Pohlmeier is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has been serving as bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida since 2022.
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United States 
17 Counties in Northeastern Florida: Alachua Baker Bradford Clay Columbia Dixie Duval Flagler Gilchrist Hamilton Lafayette Levy Nassau Putnam St. Johns Suwannee Union 
