Background 1550 to 1850 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, the few Catholics in 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 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.
1900 to 1958 Fort Lauderdale received its first parish in 1913 with the establishment of Saint Anthony's. The first Catholic church in
Homestead was Sacred Heart, built in 1917. In
Hollywood, Florida, Little Flower was established as a mission in 1924. Saint Patrick's was the first parish in
Miami Beach, erected in 1926. In
Hialeah, the first parish was St. John the Apostle, erected in 1945 In the 1950s and early 1960s, Bishop
Joseph Hurley of Saint Augustine 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. The Sisters of Mercy established
Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale in 1955. Today, it is Holy Cross Health. Saint Mary Parish in 1957 dedicated their new church in Miami; a year later, it would be designated as the Cathedral of Saint Mary.
Diocese of Miami 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. St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church, the first in Pompano Beach, was dedicated in 1959. That same year, the first parish in
Plantation, Saint Gregory the Great, was erected.Between 1960 and 1962, the Catholic Welfare Bureau ran a clandestine operation,
Operation Pedro Pan, to bring 14,000 Cuban children to South Florida. 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."
1970 to 2000 (1980) 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, McCarthy 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. 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
Fernando Isern as the next bishop of the
Diocese of Pueblo. He was the 11th archdiocesan priest to become a 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. Wenski in February 2023 offered residences for priests and seminarians who had been expelled from Nicaragua by its government. The archdiocese in August 2025 celebrated its first mass at
Alligator Alcatraz, the immigration detention facility built by the State of Florida in the
Everglades.
Sexual abuse ==Bishops==