Archdiocese of St. Louis


The Archdiocese of St. Louis is an archdiocese of the Catholic Church in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Missouri. The archdiocese is currently led by Archbishop Mitchell Thomas Rozanski. The archdiocesan cathedral is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

Structure

The Archdiocese of St. Louis 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:

1600 to 1800

The first Catholic presence in present-day Missouri was that of the Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette in 1673, who stopped in Perry County while voyaging down the Mississippi River. In 1759, French-Canadian settlers established St. Genevieve, the first parish in the archdiocese, in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. During this period, the Catholics in the region were under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of San Cristobal de la Habana, based in Havana, Cuba. With the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Spain took control of the French territories west of the Mississippi River.
In 1793, after the American Revolution, Pope Pius VI erected the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, based in New Orleans. It encompassed all the Spanish territories on the continent, including the Missouri area. Due to politics in Europe, the new diocese did not receive a bishop until 1815.

1800 to 1826

In 1803, with the signing of the Louisiana Purchase, the United States took control from France of a vast area of the continent, including Missouri. Pope Pius VII in 1815 named Louis Dubourg from the Diocese of Baltimore as the first bishop of Louisiana and the Two Floridas. Due to concerns about his personal safety in New Orleans, Dubourg chose the City of St. Louis as his episcopal see. He founded St.Louis Parish, the first parish in the city.
Wanting to train American priests for his vast diocese, DuBourg established St. Mary's of the Barrens Seminary in Perryville in 1818, placing it under the charge of the Lazarist fathers. In August 1818, he recruited Sister Rose Philippine Duchesne from the Society of the Sacred Heart in France, to open girls schools in the diocese. Duchesne founded the Academy of the Sacred Heart in St. Charles, the first free school west of the Mississippi River, along with another girls school in Florissant. DuBourg also invited the Sisters of Loretto to establish a school for girls. In 1818, DuBourg founded the Saint Louis Academy, later known as Saint Louis College, to educate Catholic laymen. In 1823, at DuBourg's invitation, the Society of Jesus sent several Belgian priests to Florissant, where they began ministering to Native American converts.
In 1824, Pope Leo XII appointed Bishop Joseph Rosati as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas. After Rosati's appointment, Dubourg moved his episcopal see back to New Orleans, leaving Rosati in control of St. Louis.

1826 to 1847

On July 18, 1826, Pope Leo XII divided the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas. One of the new dioceses was the Diocese of St. Louis, which included Missouri along with vast areas of the American Midwest and Great Plains. Because of its size, the diocese was often referred to as the Rome of the West. Leo XII named Rosati as the first bishop of St. Louis.
In 1827, Rosati transferred Saint Louis College to the Jesuits. They converted the lower division of the college into St. Louis University High School. The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul opened Mullanphy Hospital in St. Louis in 1828. The Jesuits established Saint Louis College as Saint Louis University in 1829. Rosati dedicated the Cathedral of St. Louis in 1834, making it the first Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River.
As Catholic communities started increasing outside of St. Louis, the Vatican erected new dioceses from the Diocese of St. Louis. In 1837, Pope Gregory XVI erected the Diocese of Dubuque, covering the present-day states of Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. The same pope appointed Peter Kenrick as coadjutor bishop in St. Louis to assist Rosati in 1841. When Kenrick became coadjutor bishop, the diocese was heavily in debt due to the $90,000 cost of the new cathedral. With Rosati's assistance, the diocese received financial aid from Catholic organizations in Europe. Kenrick's brother Francis Kenrick, bishop of the Diocese of Philadelphia, also provided the diocese with assistance.
In early 1843, the Vatican took more territory from St. Louis to found the Diocese of Little Rock in Arkansas and the Diocese of Chicago in Illinois. After Rosati died in Rome in late 1843, Kenrick automatically succeeded him as bishop of St. Louis.
After receiving a $300,000 bequest, Kenrick was able to stabilize the diocesan finances through some shrewd real estate dealings. He took many trips by horseback throughout the diocese, reaching Catholics who did not have priests serving their communities. In St. Louis, Kenrick instructed the cathedral priests to celebrate masses in English instead of French, as most of the congregation was now English-speaking.

1847 to 1900

elevated the Diocese of St. Louis to the Archdiocese of St. Louis on July 20, 1847, naming Kenrick as its first archbishop. By 1850, the archdiocese was operating ten parishes in the City of St. Louis.
During the American Civil War, Kenrick maintained a neutral position in a strongly divided Missouri. After the war, he urged his priests to refuse to take the ironclad oath to the United States Government. The oath was a tactic promoted by Republicans to block former officials of the Confederacy from holding influential positions in society. Reverend John A. Cummings challenged the legality of the oath in a case that reached the United States Supreme Court. It later ruled that the government could not force individuals to take the oath.
In May 1893, Pope Leo XIII appointed Bishop John Kain from the Diocese of Wheeling as coadjutor archbishop to assist Kenrick. When Kenrick died in June 1895, Kain succeeded him as archbishop. During his tenure as archbishop, Kain purchased property in St. Louis for a new cathedral. However, a tornado in the archdiocese depleted its funds, delaying the start of its construction.

1900 to 1950

named Coadjutor Bishop John J. Glennon from the Diocese of Kansas City to serve as coadjutor archbishop of St. Louis in 1903 to assist the ailing Kain. When Kain died in October 1903, Glennon automatically succeeded him as archbishop. He opened the new Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis in 1915, followed by the minor seminary in Shrewsbury. Also in 1915, the Sisters of Loretto opened Webster College in Webster Groves. It is today Webster University. The Sisters of St. Joseph established Fontbonne College in 1923 in Clayton. Now Fontbonne University, it announced that it was closing in mid-2025.
During the early 1940s, many local Jesuit priests challenged the segregationist policies at the St. Louis Catholic schools. In 1943, Glennon blocked a young African-American woman from enrolling at Webster College. When some priests confronted Glennon about this, he called the integration plan a "Jesuit ploy." He transferred one of the complaining priests from an African-American parish. Saint Louis University began admitting African American students in the summer of 1943 after its president, Reverend Patrick Holloran, gained Glennon's approval. Glennon died in 1946.
Pope Pius XII appointed Archbishop Joseph Ritter of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis as the fourth archbishop of St. Louis in 1946. The archdiocese grew quickly during the post-World War II economic boom. Ritter opened an average of three parishes per year in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County. He raised more than $125,000,000 to build 60 new parishes and 16 high schools.
As one of his first acts as archbishop, Ritter announced that Webster College would now accept African-American students. In 1947, Ritter also allowed the senior class of St. Joseph's High School, then the city's only African-American Catholic high school, to celebrate graduation for the first time at the cathedral, alongside white students.
On August 9, 1947, Ritter announced an end to racial segregation in the archdiocesan high schools. He declared, "The cross on top of our schools must mean something," and expressed his belief in "the equality of every soul before Almighty God". The Catholic Parents Association of Saint Louis and Saint Louis County, a group of white parents, threatened to sue Ritter, stating that his desegregation order violated Missouri state law. Ritter then issued a pastoral letter, warning about possible excommunication for Catholics "interfering with ecclesiastical office authority by having recourse to authority outside of the church". Ritter later ordered all the parish schools to "accept all children into parish schools without regard to race". Ritter also desegregated all Catholic hospitals in the archdiocese.
Ritter started fundraising for the Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital for Children in St. Louis in 1949. Ritter also developed what is now known as the Annual Catholic Appeal, which remains a primary source of financial support for many archdiocesan educational and charitable activities.

1950 to 1980

In 1950, Ritter created 31 classrooms for special needs students in archdiocesan schools and two group homes. In 1956, he established a mission in La Paz, Bolivia, one of the first foreign missions sponsored by an American diocese. Until that time, religious institutes or societies of apostolic life had run most foreign missions. Parishioners in the archdiocese regularly contributed more money to foreign missions than any other comparable archdiocese. In 1964, following reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Ritter celebrated the world's first authorized mass in English at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Ritter died in 1967.
On February 14, 1968, Pope Paul VI named Bishop John Carberry of the Diocese of Columbus as the fifth archbishop of St. Louis. In 1969, Carberry removed 60 seminarians from a class at the Saint Louis University Divinity School because a Presbyterian scholar was teaching a segment on Pauls' epistles.
In 1971, Carberry closed McBride High school in North St. Louis, a largely black area. He was criticized for closing the school while subsidizing a swimming pool at John F. Kennedy High School in Manchester, a wealthy white suburb. Carberry moved his own residence from the episcopal residence in St. Louis to suburban Creve Coeur. In 1972, he established the Urban Services Apostolate for inner-city parishes. Carberry initially opposed the reception of communion by hand, another Second Vatican Council reform. He believed that it was irreverent and risked the possibility of recipients stealing hosts to use at black masses. However, he finally permitted this practice in 1977. That same year, he ordained the first permanent deacons in the archdiocese. Carberry retired in 1979.