Archdiocese of Miami


The Archdiocese of Miami is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in South Florida in the United States. It is the metropolitan see for the Ecclesiastical Province of Miami, which covers all of Florida. The Archdiocese of Miami contains the Florida counties Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe.
Formed in 1958, the archdiocese gained many Cuban members following the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Starting in the late 1990s or early 2000s it has faced a sexual abuse scandal in which at least 90 minors made claims of sexual abuse as of 2003.
The archdiocese operates two hospitals and other healthcare facilities. It runs 60 elementary or middle schools, 13 high schools, and two universities. It celebrates mass in at least a dozen languages.
The Cathedral of Saint Mary is the mother church of the archdiocese. The archbishop of Miami is Thomas Wenski.

Structure

As of 2021, the Catholic population in the archdiocese was approximately 824,000, served by 271 priests in 102 parishes.
Priests in the archdiocese celebrate mass in at least a dozen languages. The archdiocese operates two schools for the disabled, sixty elementary/middle schools, thirteen high schools, two universities, and two seminaries. The archdiocese operates radio, print, and television media outlets.

History

Background

The first Catholics in Eastern Florida were a group of Spanish Jesuits who founded a mission in 1566 on Upper Matecumbe Key in the Florida Keys. After several years of disease and turbulent relations with the Native American inhabitants, the missionaries returned to Spain.
By 1606, Florida was under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Havana in Cuba. After the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Spain ceded all of Florida to Great Britain for the return of Cuba. Given the antagonism of Protestant Great Britain to Catholicism, the majority of the Catholic population in Florida fled to Cuba. After the American Revolution, Spain regained control of Florida in 1784. In 1793, the Vatican changed the jurisdiction for Florida Catholics from Havana to the Apostolic Vicariate of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, based in New Orleans. In the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, Spain ceded all of Florida to the United States, which established the Florida Territory in 1821.
In 1825, Pope Leo XII erected the Vicariate of Alabama and Florida, which included all of Florida, based in Mobile, Alabama. In 1858, Pius IX moved Florida into a new Apostolic Vicariate of Florida and named Bishop Augustin Verot as vicar apostolic. In 1870, Pius IX elevated the Vicariate of Florida into the Diocese of St. Augustine and named Vérot as its first bishop. The new diocese covered all of Florida except for the Florida Panhandle region.
In 1850, Bishop Francis X. Gartland of Savannah sent the priest John F. Kirby to Key West to tend to a growing Catholic community there. He founded Saint Mary Star of the Sea Church in Key West in 1852. Gesù Parish in Miami, founded in 1896, was the first parish in South Florida outside of the Florida Keys. The first Catholic church in Homestead was Sacred Heart, built in 1917.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, St. Augustine bishop Joseph Hurley purchased land throughout South Florida in anticipation of a future population boom. Dozens of Catholic churches, schools and cemeteries were later built on land purchased by Hurley.

Establishment and early history

Pope Pius XII erected the Diocese of Miami on October 7, 1958, naming Auxiliary Bishop Coleman Carroll from the Diocese of Pittsburgh as the first bishop of Miami. On its formation, the new diocese included the 16 southern counties in Florida, with a Catholic population of approximately 200,000.
The Cuban Revolution in 1959 triggered a wave of Cuban immigration to South Florida, increasing the Catholic population in the region. Carroll established the Catholic Welfare Bureau to assist these immigrants. Between 1960 and 1962, the bureau ran a clandestine operation, Operation Pedro Pan, to bring 14,000 Cuban children to South Florida.
On March 2, 1968, Pope Paul VI erected the Dioceses of St. Petersburg and Orlando, taking eight counties from the Diocese of Miami. At the same time, the pope elevated the Diocese of Miami to the Archdiocese of Miami, naming Carroll as archbishop.
During the American Civil Rights Movement of the 60's, Carroll was influential in stemming threatened racial riots in Miami. He desegregated the Catholic schools in the archdiocese ten years before any other diocese in Florida. Carroll was a co-founder of the Community Relations Board, which worked to "quell waves of misunderstanding, discrimination and discontent which often threatened to flood South Florida's multi-ethnic community."

Later history

After Carroll died 1977, Paul VI named Bishop Edward McCarthy as Miami's archbishop. McCarthy oversaw the construction in Miami Shores of the Pastoral Center - Florida Catholic for the archdiocese and restructured most senior operational divisions. He established the Office of Lay Ecclesial Ministry, the Office of Evangelization and the permanent diaconate program. In 1980, he offered support and assistance to Cuban refugees during the Mariel Boat Lift. The following year, he supported the rights of Haitian immigrants who were detained by the US Immigration Service under the Wet Foot, Dry Foot policy. Responding to the needs of this new immigration, McCarthy opened the Pierre Toussaint Haitian Catholic Center in Miami. McCarthy retired in 1994.
On November 3, 1994, Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop John C. Favalora of St. Petersburg as the third archbishop of Miami. During his tenure, Favalora built two new high schools and nine grade schools. Favalora also initiated Vision 2000, a five-year fundraising campaign to support Catholic education and outreach institutions in the archdiocese. Vision 2000 raised $90 million.
On July 11, 2003, John Paul II appointed Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Wenski of Miami to lead the Diocese of Orlando. With substantial immigration of predominantly Catholic South and Central Americans to the South Florida area, the Catholic population reached 25% of the total population of South Florida. Waves of immigrants from other parts of the world, including Asia and Africa, led to priests celebrating mass in over a dozen different languages.
In 2009, the Vatican named Reverend Fernando Isern, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Kendall, as the next bishop of the Diocese of Pueblo. He was the 11th archdiocesan priest to become bishop since 1958.
On April 20, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI accepted Favarola's resignation and appointed Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando as his successor. On June 1, 2010, Wenski was installed as the fourth archbishop of Miami at the Cathedral of Saint Mary.

Sexual abuse

Bishops

Bishop of Miami

  1. Coleman Carroll ; elevated to Archbishop

    Archbishops of Miami

  2. Coleman Carroll
  3. Edward Anthony McCarthy
  4. John Favalora
  5. Thomas Wenski

    Auxiliary bishops

Schools

As of 2024, the Archdiocese of Miami had an enrollment of 35,000 students in 68 schools and four dedicated pre-schools.
High schoolOpenedDistrictCity
Archbishop Coleman F. Carroll High School1998The HammocksUnincorporated area
Archbishop Edward A. McCarthy High School1998Southwest Ranches
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School1854TamiamiMiami
Cardinal Gibbons High School1961Fort Lauderdale
Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart1961Coconut GroveMiami
Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School1960Hollywood
Christopher Columbus High School1958WestchesterUnincorporated area
Immaculata-LaSalle High School1958Coconut GroveMiami
Monsignor Edward Pace High School1961Miami Gardens
Our Lady of Lourdes Academy1963Ponce-Davis
St. Brendan High School1975WestchesterUnincorporated area
St. Thomas Aquinas High School1936Fort Lauderdale

Religious education

The archdiocese offers religious education classes for children who attend public or private schools. In 1997, Favalora started requiring all volunteers, employees, teachers and priests working with children to be fingerprinted and undergo a background check. The archdiocese also offers adult religious education classes.

Universities

The Archdiocese of Miami administers St. Thomas University in Miami. In 1961, a group of Augustinian priests arrived in Miami after being expelled from Cuba after the Cuban Revolution. They founded Biscayne College, which the archdiocese took over in 1988 and renamed St. Thomas University.
St. Thomas offers Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, Master's degree, Master of Business Administration, M.Acc., Doctor of Education, and Doctor of Philosophy programs. It offers several joint degree programs and an accelerated B.A./J.D. as well. The School of Law at St. Thomas was fully accredited by the American Bar Association in February 1995, and offers the Juris Doctor degree as well as the Masters of Law degrees.
In 1940, the Dominican sisters, along with Bishop Patrick Berry of St. Augustine, founded Barry College for women in Miami Shores. It became Barry University in 1981