1630 to 1800 The first Catholic presence in present-day Wisconsin was that of French Catholic missionaries in the Green Bay area in the 17th century. When French explorer
Jean Nicolet entered the Green Bay areas in 1634, he was followed by Jesuit missionaries. Wisconsin became part of the French colony of
New France.
Claude-Jean Allouez celebrated Mass with a
Native American tribe near present-day
Oconto in December 1669, the feast of
St. Francis Xavier. He established the
St. Francis Xavier Mission there. The mission moved to
Red Banks for a short time in 1671, and then to
De Pere, where it remained until 1687, when it was burned. The missionaries worked with the
Meskwaki,
Sauk, and
Ho-Chunk tribes, protected by Fort Francis near Green Bay. When the fort was destroyed in 1728, the missionaries left the area. After the
American Revolution ended in 1791, the new United States took over Wisconsin.
1800 to 1843 Catholic jurisdiction for the new Wisconsin Territory passed to the
Diocese of Bardstown in 1808, then the
Diocese of Cincinnati in 1826. The first new Catholic church in the Wisconsin area in over 100 years was constructed in
Fort Howard in 1825. Its parishioners included many
French Canadians living in the settlement. In 1841, Coadjutor Bishop
Pierre-Paul Lefevere of Detroit visited Milwaukee.
John Henni was the first bishop. When Henni took office, he only had four priests ministering to a few Catholics immigrants from Germany and Ireland. The only church in the diocese was St. Peter's, which was deeply in debt. Henni in 1845 founded
St. Francis Seminary, allowing the seminarians to stay in his residence. He also invited several
orders of
nuns and priests to serve in Milwaukee. In 1846, Henni completed
Old St. Mary's Church in Milwaukee, the second Catholic church in Milwaukee. Designed by architect Victor Schulte in the
Zopfstil style, St. Mary's initially served German immigrants. The
Annunciation altarpiece in St. Mary's, painted by Franz Xavier Glink was donated to the diocese by King
Ludwig I of Bavaria. In 1847, Henni laid the foundation of the new cathedral, St. John the Evangelist. Also designed by Schulte, the cathedral was built with
Cream City brick, fabricated locally. St. John the Evangelist was consecrated by Archbishop
Gaetano Bedini, the papal nuncio of the United States, in 1853. In 1850,
Pope Pius IX erected the
Diocese of St. Paul, taking Minnesota from the Diocese of Milwaukee. In 1866, he erected the Dioceses of La Crosse and Green Bay, removing their territories from the Diocese of Milwaukee. In one of his last acts, Henni oversaw the opening of
Marquette University in Milwaukee in August 1881. After Henni died two days later, Heiss automatically became the next archbishop of Milwaukee.
1889 to 1903 In 1889, the
Wisconsin Legislature passed the
Bennett Law which required all primary and secondary schools in the state to teach major subjects in English. The law was bitterly resented by German-American communities, both Catholic and
Lutheran, that ran schools teaching in German. It was also opposed by Polish and Norwegian communities in Wisconsin. There was less opposition from Irish Catholics. The law was endorsed and promoted by the anti-Catholic
American Protective Association. Heiss was opposed to the law. After Heiss died in 1890,
Frederick Katzer became the next archbishop. At the beginning of Katzer's tenure in 1891, the archdiocese had 227 priests, 268 churches, and 125 parochial schools to serve a Catholics population of 180,000. Katzer strongly opposed the Bennett law. The outpouring of anti-Catholic sentiment from the law's supporters soon moved Irish Catholics against it. A prominent Irish newspaper, the
Catholic Citizen, labeled the Bennett Law a convergence of "all the sectarian, bigoted, fanatical and crazy impurities" within the Republican Party which had taken the reins of power. When the Democratic Party regained power in Wisconsin, it repealed the Bennett Law in 1891.
1903 to 1940 When Katzer died in 1903, there were 329 priests, 321 churches, 148 parochial schools, and 280,861 Catholics in the archdiocese. Leo XIII replaced Katzer in 1903 with Bishop
Sebastian Messmer of Green Bay. In 1921, he prohibited Catholic children in Milwaukee from participating in a
Fourth of July pilgrim pageant, which he described as "exclusively a glorification of the Protestant
pilgrims," but later withdrew his objections. Messmer drew criticism from Polish Catholics after condemning the
Kuryer Polski newspaper in Milwaukee. During his 26-year tenure, Messmer established
Mount Mary College in Milwaukee and saw the elevation of Marquette College to
Marquette University. He actively supported the
American Federation of Catholic Societies as well as ministries for
African American and
Hispanic Catholics. Stritch was an advocate for
Catholic Action and the
Catholic Youth Organization. An opponent of the controversial priest
Charles Coughlin, he once wrote a letter to a Milwaukee
rabbi in which he rebuked those who "gain and hold a popular audience, degrade themselves and abuse the trust reposed in them by misquoting, half-quoting, and actually insinuating half-truths." In 1939, Stritch was appointed archbishop of the
Archdiocese of Chicago.
1940 to 1977 , St. Francis, Wisconsin
Pope Pius XII in 1940 appointed Bishop
Moses E. Kiley of the
Diocese of Trenton as the next archbishop of Milwaukee. Kiley oversaw an extensive renovation of the fire-damaged Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, which reopened in 1942. He also led the rebuilding of St. Aemillian Orphanage in Milwaukee, which had also suffered major fire damage in the 1930s. Kiley oversaw the renovation of
St. Francis Seminary, the move to change
Pio Nono High School in St. Francis into a
minor seminary, and created a Catholic Family Life Bureau in 1948. Five years later, in 1958, he became archbishop of Chicago. Bishop
William Cousins from the
Diocese of Peoria was the next archbishop of Milwaukee. During the
American civil rights movement, Cousins was pressured to respond to the activities of
James Groppi, an activist priest who led several civil rights marches and protests. In 1967, Cousins expressed his support for
open housing and Groppi's other objectives, triggering a backlash from some Catholics in the archdiocese. In 1971, Cousins sold a 180-acre tract of archdiocesan land to a commercial developer. Facing opposition for the move, he cited the need to finance programs for the poor in the face of a $4 million debt. After the archdiocese refused several requests from Groppi to be assigned to an African-American parish, he resigned from the priesthood in 1976. Cousins retired in 1977 after 35 years as archbishop of Milwaukee.
1977 to present In 1977,
Pope Paul VI appointed
Rembert Weakland, abbot primate of the
Benedictine Confederation, as archbishop of Milwaukee. One of Weakland's first actions was to sell the suburban home where his predecessor had lived and move to the cathedral rectory. Weakland gave support for the Milwaukee AIDS Project. Amidst abortion controversies, Weakland participated in public "listening sessions", encouraging Catholic women to share their views on the issue. In early 2002, Weakland submitted his resignation as archbishop to the Vatican. While Weakland was waiting for his resignation to be accepted, the news media in May 2002 reported that the archdiocese had paid a $450,000 settlement in 1998 to Paul Marcoux, a former seminarian. In 1979, Marcoux had told church authorities about his long-term relationship with Weakland. Weakland publicly admitted to the affair after the story broke and apologized during a church service. Later that month, the Vatican accepted his resignation. The next archbishop of Milwaukee was Auxiliary Bishop
Timothy M. Dolan of St. Louis, named by John Paul II in 2001. Dolan took a special interest in priests and
vocations, and the number of
seminary enrollments rose during his tenure. In 2009, Dolan was appointed archbishop of New York. To replace Dolan,
Pope Benedict XVI named Bishop Jerome E. Listecki of La Crosse in 2009. The archdiocese filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2011 after it failed to reach a settlement with two dozen victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy." In March 2023, Listecki removed the right to hear confession and give absolution from James Connell, a retired archdiocesan priest. In an opinion article in
USA Today, Connell had expressed support for a proposed Delaware law that would invalidate the
clergy-penitent privilege in cases that involved sexual abuse. On January 14, 2025, Jeffrey Grob, formerly an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, was installed as the new Archbishop of Milwaukee.
Sexual abuse scandal A 2003 report released by the
Wisconsin Senate listed 58 priests from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee with credible accusations of sexual abuse of children. In the report, Archbishop Weakland admitted allowing
priests guilty of child sex abuse to continue in ministry without warning parishioners or alerting the police. Weakland stated in his 2009 autobiography that in the early years of the sexual abuse scandal, he did not understand that
child sexual abuse was a crime. In July 2011, the archdiocese launched "a national advertising campaign to notify
sex abuse victims of their deadline to file claims. As of early 2012, approximately 550 people were asking for restitution for alleged sexual abuse by clergy in the archdiocese. It paid financial settlements to claimants funded "through various sources, including insurance, loans and the sale of property", and funds were set aside to pay for therapy. In March 2019, the archdiocese announced that it would remove the names of Cousins and Weakland from buildings in the archdiocese due to their poor handling of sex abuse cases. ==Demographics==