1700 to 1800 During the 17th century, present day Ohio was part of the French colony of
New France. The
Diocese of Quebec had jurisdiction over the region. However, unlike other parts of the future
American Midwest, French missionaries made no attempts to found Catholic missions in Ohio. In 1763,
Ohio Country became part of the British
Province of Quebec, forbidden from settlement by American colonists. After the
American Revolution ended in 1783,
Pope Pius VI erected in 1784 the
Prefecture Apostolic of the United States, encompassing the entire territory of the new nation. In 1787, the Ohio area became part of the
Northwest Territory of the United States. Pius VI created the
Diocese of Baltimore, the first diocese in the United States, to replace the prefecture apostolic in 1789.
1800 to 1847 In 1808,
Pope Pius VII erected the
Diocese of Bardstown in Kentucky, with jurisdiction over the new state of Ohio along with the other midwest states. Cincinnati's first Catholic church, Christ Church, was organized in 1819, just beyond the city boundaries. Soon additional parishes were formed in Hamilton and St. Martin, Brown County.
Emmanuel Thienpont pioneered many parishes in the archdiocese.
Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Cincinnati on June 19, 1821, taking all of Ohio from the
Diocese of Bardstown. The pope named the missionary
Edward Fenwick as the first bishop of Cincinnati. Fenwick travelled to Europe in 1823 to raise funding for the new diocese. He returned in 1826 with resources to begin construction of the cathedral and parochial schools He also founded convents for the
Sisters of Charity and the first community of Dominican women in the United States, the
Dominicans of St. Catharine. The Sisters of Charity opened the St. Peter's Orphan Asylum for girls in 1829. In 1829, Fenwick established St. Francis Xavier Seminary in Cincinnati. It is the oldest seminary west of the
Appalachian Mountains in the United States. In 1831, Fenwick initiated publication of
The Catholic Telegraph newspaper. That same year, he opened the
Athenaeum in Cincinnati to educate lay workers. After Fenwick died in 1832,
Pope Gregory XVI named
John Purcell as the second bishop of Cincinnati. At the time of his installation, the diocese had only one Catholic church to serve thousands of new Catholic German and Irish Immigrants. Purcell founded
Holy Trinity Parish in Cincinnati in 1834, the first German language church in the diocese. The first Catholic church in Dayton, Emmanuel Church, opened in 1837. It was followed in 1842 by the dedication of
St. Mary's Church, the oldest existing parish in Cincinnati. Seeking a larger seminary to replace St. Francis Xavier, Purcell in 1851 constructed Mount St. Mary's of the West Seminary on
Price Hill in Cincinnati. To staff the new seminary and school, Purcell invited the Jesuit Fathers into the diocese. He also established St. Aloysius Orphan Asylum for German-speaking boys in 1831.
1847 to 1900 In 1847,
Pope Pius IX erected the
Diocese of Cleveland, taking northeastern Ohio from the Diocese of Cincinnati In 1850,
Pope Pius IX elevated the Diocese of Cincinnati to an
archdiocese with the dioceses of
Louisville, Detroit, and
Cleveland as its suffragans. In 1853, Purcell alienated some of Cincinnati's Protestants by arguing that Catholics should not be taxed to support public schools. Later that year, he created controversy when he invited Cardinal
Gaetano Bedini, the emissary of
Pope Pius IX, to visit Cincinnati. Many German Protestant "
Forty-Eighters", who had fled Europe after the failed
revolutions of 1848, saw Bedini as a symbol of oppression due to his role in putting down a revolution in the
Papal States in 1849. They organized a protest march to Purcell's residence, where Bedini was staying, on Christmas Day 1853. When the demonstrators clashed with police, several were injured and one died. The Vatican in 1868 erected the
Diocese of Columbus from the archdiocese, taking "the territory from the Ohio River to the Scioto River ... together with the Counties of Franklin, Delaware and Morrow." The Franciscan Sisters in 1878 opened St. Elizabeth Hospital, the first Catholic hospital in Dayton. It later became the Franciscan Medical Center, which closed in 2000. In 1880, Bishop
William Elder of the
Diocese of Natchez was appointed
coadjutor archbishop in Cincinnati by
Pope Leo XIII to assist Purcell. After Purcell died in 1883, Elder automatically became archbishop. Elder became archbishop when the archdiocese was facing severe financial problems. Elder systematically organized the administration of the archdiocese. He reopened Mount Saint Mary Seminary in 1887, which had been closed since 1879. He instituted the office of chancellor and insisted on annual reports from clergy and parishes in order to reduce the archdiocesan debt. In 1891, after 14 years of litigation, a court found that the archdiocese owed $140,000 to parishioners who had lost money during the 1877 bank run. Elder accepted the
verdict in 1892 and assessed parishes to repay the debt in full. During
World War I, Moeller successfully petitioned the Vatican for an end to
national parishes in the archdiocese and permission to formulate parish boundaries. In 1921, Moeller condemned several popular dances (including the
shimmy and
camel walk) as well as bare shoulders on women at church social functions. He died in 1925. Bishop
John T. McNicholas of the
Diocese of Detroit was appointed the fourth archbishop of Cincinnati by
Pope Pius XI in 1925. The
1928 US presidential election, featured the first Catholic to win a major party nomination, New York Governor
Alfred E. Smith. McNicholas addressed accusations that Smith as president would take orders from the Vatican on running the United States. McNicholas declared that "we, as American Catholics, owe no civil allegiance to the
Vatican State." In 1944, the Vatican erected the
Diocese of Steubenville from portions of the Diocese of Columbus and simultaneously transferred the eastern counties from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati to Columbus. After McNicholas died in 1950,
Pope Pius XII named Bishop
Karl Alter of Toledo as the next archbishop of Cincinnati. During his administration, Alter established 98 churches, 94 elementary schools, 14 high schools, 79 rectories, and 55 convents. He also instituted a priests' senate and an archdiocesan school board composed of lay members, and encouraged the formation of parish councils. Alter undertook a restoration of
Saint Peter in Chains Cathedral. Alter retired in 1969.
1970 to present Bishop
Paul Leibold of the
Diocese of Evansville succeeded Alter as archbishop, being named by
Pope Paul VI in 1969. Leibold strengthened the priests' senate, the pastoral council, and the parish councils. He also launched the archdiocese's sixth synod, Synod '71. In 1958, Sister Mary Ephrem Neuzil, an Ohio nun, claimed to have seen apparitions of
Mary, mother of Jesus and messages from
St. Joseph. Leibold, who had previously acted as a spiritual advisor to Neuzil, allowed her to publish two pamphlets about her experiences. He also commissioned a wooden plaque with an image of Our Lady of America, a title of Mary, for display at the New Riegel convent. In 1971, Leibold criticized composer
Leonard Bernstein's theatrical work
Mass, terming it as offensive. After Leibold died in 1972, Paul VI appointed Bishop
Joseph Bernardin, general secretary of the
National Conference of Catholic Bishops, as the next archbishop of Cincinnati. During his tenure, Bernardin worked to improve relations between Catholics and
Jews and strove for better understanding between the Catholic Church and
Protestant denominations. He became archbishop of
Chicago in 1982. To replace Bernardin in Cincinnati,
Pope John Paul II selected Auxiliary Bishop
Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati in 1982. In 2008,
Pope Benedict XVI named Bishop
Dennis Schnurr of the
Diocese of Duluth as coadjutor archbishop in Cincinnati to assist Pilarczyk. When he retired in 2009, Schnurr automatically replaced him. In 2010, Schnurr revoked archdiocese permission for a "Violence Against Women" event at
Seton High School in Cincinnati because one of the speakers supported
abortion rights for women. The sponsors disinvited the speaker, but the archdiocese still denied its support for the event. In May 2020, Schnurr decided not to renew the contract of Jim Zimmerman, a teacher at
Archbishop Alter High School in
Kettering, because Zimmerman was part of a
same-sex marriage. A teacher at the school for 23 years, Zimmerman had been open about his marriage with school officials, other faculty and students. According to Zimmerman, his principal told him that a community member had alerted Schnurr about the marriage. Zimmerman's supporters accused Schnurr of
homophobia, which he strongly denied. In July 2021, Schnurr said that he disapproved of a town hall being held by President
Joe Biden at
Mount Saint Joseph University in Cincinnati, but admitted he had no power to block it. Schnurr did not explain his reasoning. Schnurr said that he would have never approved this event on archdiocese property. In October 2021, Schnurr announced a plan for the restructuring of the archdiocese that could close 70% of its churches. Parishes were to be grouped into "parish families" overseen by a single pastor. In the long term, each parish family was expected to merge its parishes into a single parish. Reorganization plans were scheduled to be finalized in 2022. Pope Francis accepted Schnurr's resignation on February 12, 2025, and named Bishop
Robert G. Casey as archbishop of Cincinnati. Schnurr was appointed by Pope Francis to serve as
apostolic administrator until Casey's installation.
Sexual abuse In 1991, George Cooley from Guardian Angels Parish in
Mount Washington, pleaded guilty to sexually molesting four boys during the 1980s. He was
laicized soon after his conviction. In November 2003, following a
sexual abuse scandal and two-year investigation by the
Hamilton County prosecutor's office, Archbishop Pilarczyk entered a
plea of
nolo contendere regarding five
misdemeanor charges of failure to report allegations of
child molestation from the 1970s and 1980s. The court fined the archdiocese $10,000. In July 2018, Geoff Drew was accused of sending inappropriate
text messages to a 17-year-old boy. In August 2019, Schnurr removed Binzer from his position as head of priest personnel. In May 2020, the Vatican accepted Binzer's resignation as auxiliary bishop in Cincinnati. In August 2019, police arrested Drew and charged him with nine counts of sex abuse while serving as a music teacher at St. Ignatius School. He pleaded guilty in December 2021 and was sentenced to seven years in prison. Barry Stechschulte in October 2024 resigned from St. Susanna Parish in Mason, Ohio. It had been revealed that in 2012 he had ordered the destruction of a computer
hard drive that contained inappropriate pictures of children stored there by someone else. Stechschulte did not report the images to police until 2012. Stechschulte was transferred to a different parish. == Religious orders and congregations ==