Diocese of Victoria in Texas


The Diocese of Victoria in Texas is a diocese of the Catholic Church in southern Texas in the United States. The Cathedral of Our Lady of Victory serves is the mother church. The diocese is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. The bishop is Brendan J. Cahill.
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Territory

The Diocese of Victoria in Texas covers the following counties: Calhoun, Colorado, DeWitt, Fayette, Goliad, Jackson, Lavaca, Matagorda, Victoria, and Wharton.

History

1600 to 1982

The first Catholic mission in Texas, then part of the Spanish Empire, was San Francisco de los Tejas. It was founded by the Franciscan Damián Massanet in 1690 in the Weches area. The priests left the mission after three years, then established a second one, Nuestro Padre San Francisco de los Tejas, near present-day Alto in 1716. In 1824, a Mexican missionary founded the City of Victoria on the Guadalupe River and established Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.
In 1839, after the 1836 founding of the Texas Republic, Pope Gregory XVI erected the Prefecture Apostolic of Texas, covering its present-day area. The prefecture was elevated to a vicariate apostolic in 1841, the year Texas became an American state. The area was assigned to several different Texas dioceses for the next 135 years.

1982 to present

Pope John Paul II established the Diocese of Victoria in Texas on April 13, 1982. Its territory was taken from the Archdiocese of San Antonio, the Diocese of Galveston-Houston, and the Diocese of Corpus Christi. The pope named Auxiliary Bishop Charles Grahmann of the Archdiocese of San Antonio as the first bishop.
In 1989, Pope John Paul II named Grahmann as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Dallas-Fort Worth. Replacing Grahmann in Victoria in 1990 was David Fellhauer from the same diocese. In 2004, the diocese was transferred from the province of San Antonio to the newly established Province of Galveston-Houston. Fellhauer retired in 2015.
The current bishop of the Diocese of Victoria in Texas is Brendan J. Cahill, named bishop by Pope Francis in 2015.

Sex abuse

On January 21, 2019, Bishop Cahill named three diocesan priests with credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors. The investigation covered all allegations dating back to the founding of the diocese in 1982. One priest, David L. Collela, was retired and a second, Guido Miguel Quiroz Reyes, was deceased. The third priest, Alfred Prado, had been laicized and left the United States.

Coat of arms

The diocesan coat of arms consists of a blue field bearing a silver cross charged with a green lighthouse with a red turret and a gold beacon. According to the diocesan blazon, the blue references sky and water as symbols of peace and unity, while the lighthouse alludes to Christ’s light guiding the faithful and to the diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Lighthouse.

Bishops of Victoria in Texas

  1. Charles Victor Grahmann, appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Dallas and later succeeded as bishop
  2. David Eugene Fellhauer
  3. Brendan John Cahill

Education

High schools