Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine

In the mid 1500's, 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. In 1793, Pope Pius VI established the Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas with jurisdiction over all of Spanish Florida.

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 Reverend Michael Portier as the apostolic vicar.

When Portier assumed his post, there were no priests in the entire vicariate. In 1828, he persuaded Bishop John England of the Diocese of Charleston to send Reverend Edward Mayne to St. Augustine.

In 1850, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Savannah, which included all of Florida east of the Apalachicola River. Seven years later, the same pope move this Florida territory into a new Apostolic Vicariate of Florida and named Bishop Augustin Verot as vicar apostolic. Since the new vicarate had only three priests, Vérot travelled to France in 1859 to recruit more. He succeeded in bringing back seven priests.[1] 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.[2]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.

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 the Diocese 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.[7] Moore died in 1901.

In 1902, Reverend 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.[8] He also established the first Catholic parish for African Americans in the state.[8] Kenny died in 1913.

The next bishop of St. Augustine was Reverend Michael Curley, named by Pope Pius X in 1914. 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, then Bishop William John Kenny had told his teaching nuns to ignore it. In 1916, Florida Governor Park Trammell ordered the arrest of three Sisters of St. Joseph for violating the law. Curley vigorously attacked their arrests as part of a campaign against Catholic schools, gaining strong support from other Catholic prelates in the United State[9][10]

Curley attracted national attention in 1917 by successfully battling a bill in the Florida Legislature that would have mandated inspections of convents.[11][12][13] Curley refused to comply with it.[10] He led a successful legal campaign to have the law declared unconstitutional.[13] He also sought to educate Floridians about Catholicism and demonstrate the bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan.[10]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.[14] In 1921, Pope Benedict XV named Curley as the new archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

In 1922, Patrick Barry was appointed the fifth bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine by Pope Pius XI.[15]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.[16] 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. [17] 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.[18] Hurley died in 1967.

Bishop Paul Francis Tanner was the next bishop of St. Augustine, selected by Pope Paul VI in 1968. That same year, the pope erected the Dioceses of Orlando and St. Petersburg, both taking territory from the Diocese of St. Augustine.[17] In 1975, Paul VI erected the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, taking more territory from St. Augustine.[17] Tanner retired in 1979. His replacement was Auxiliary Bishop John J. Snyder from the Diocese of Brooklyn, named by Pope John Paul II that same year. Snyder entered retirement in 2000.

In 2001, John Paul II appointed Reverend Victor Galeone of the Archdiocese of Baltimore as bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine. Galeone retired in 2011 and Pope Benedict XVI replaced him with Auxiliary Bishop Felipe de Jesús Estévez of the Archdiocese of Miami.

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.[19] 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

In 2003, a Florida woman wrote Bishop Galeone about being sexually abused when she was 11 years old by William Malone, a diocese priest. The woman had brought these same accusations in 1991 to Bishop Snyder. The diocese had dismissed the accusations then as being not credible. After receiving her recent complaint, Galeone met with the woman, but never submitted the accusation to the Diocesan Review Board, nor contacted the local district attorney. This was despite the fact that the diocese was providing financial support for Malone's child by another victim. In 2018, Malone was added to a list of diocese priests with credible accusations of child sexual abuse.[20]

In April 2016, Galeone remove Stephen Charest from his post as pastor of Holy Spirit Parish in Lake Wales, Florida. Charest had been arrested on April 20, 2016 for solicitation to commit lewdness. Charest was arrested after soliciting a sex act from an undercover sheriff's deputy in a wooded area in the town.[21]

In March 2020, the diocese removed former Gainesville Father John H. Dux from ministry after determining that sex abuse allegations against him from 1976, which were now well beyond the state of Florida statute of limitation for a criminal case, were credible.[22] 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.[23] However, a total of 13 priests on this statewide list were tied to the diocese.[24]

1. Augustin Verot, P.S.S. (1870–1876)
2. John Moore (1877–1901)
3. William John Kenny (1902–1913)
4. Michael Joseph Curley (1914–1921), appointed Archbishop of Baltimore-Washington
5. Patrick Joseph Barry (1922–1940)
6. Joseph Patrick Hurley (1940–1967), Archbishop (personal title) in 1949
7. Paul Francis Tanner (1968–1979)
8. John J. Snyder (1979–2000)
9. Victor Galeone (2001–2011)
10. Felipe de Jesús Estévez (2011–2022)
11. Erik T. Pohlmeier (2022-present)

• Thomas Joseph McDonough (1947-1957), appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Savannah and later Bishop of Savannah and Archbishop of Louisville

• Maurice Patrick Foley, appointed Bishop of Tuguegarao in the Philippines in 1910
• William Turner, appointed Bishop of Buffalo in 1919
• John Joseph Fitzpatrick (priest here, 1948-1958), appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Miami in 1968 and later Bishop of Brownsville
• William Thomas Larkin, appointed Bishop of Saint Petersburg in 1979
• Joseph Keith Symons, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Saint Petersburg in 1981
• Robert Joseph Baker, appointed Bishop of Charleston in 1999 and later Bishop of Birmingham
• Thanh Thai Nguyen, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Orange in 2017

• Basilica of the Immaculate Conception - Pope Francis raised Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville to a Minor Basilica in 2013.[26]
• Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine (St. Augustine, Florida) - Originally established in 1565 and re-built in the 18th century, it is the oldest church in Florida.