1600 to 1800 The first Catholic presence in present-day Missouri was that of the Jesuit missionary
Jacques Marquette in 1673, who stopped in
Perry County while voyaging down the Mississippi River. In 1759, French-Canadian settlers established St. Genevieve, the first parish in the archdiocese, in
Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. With the end of the
French and Indian War in 1763, Spain took control of the French territories west of the Mississippi River. In 1793, after the
American Revolution,
Pope Pius VI erected the
Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, based in New Orleans. It encompassed all the Spanish territories on the continent, including the Missouri area. Due to politics in Europe, the new diocese did not receive a bishop until 1815.
1800 to 1826 In 1803, with the signing of the
Louisiana Purchase, the United States took control from France of a vast area of the continent, including Missouri.
Pope Pius VII in 1815 named
Louis Dubourg from the
Diocese of Baltimore as the first bishop of Louisiana and the Two Floridas. Due to concerns about his personal safety in New Orleans, Dubourg chose the City of St. Louis as his
episcopal see. He founded St.Louis Parish, the first parish in the city. Wanting to train American priests for his vast diocese, DuBourg established
St. Mary's of the Barrens Seminary in
Perryville in 1818, In August 1818, he recruited Sister
Rose Philippine Duchesne from the
Society of the Sacred Heart in France, to open girls schools in the diocese. DuBourg also invited the
Sisters of Loretto to establish a school for girls. In 1818, DuBourg founded the Saint Louis Academy, later known as Saint Louis College, to educate Catholic laymen. In 1823, at DuBourg's invitation, the
Society of Jesus sent several Belgian priests to Florissant, where they began ministering to Native American converts.
1826 to 1847 On July 18, 1826, Pope Leo XII divided the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas. One of the new dioceses was the Diocese of St. Louis, which included Missouri along with vast areas of the
American Midwest and
Great Plains. Leo XII named Rosati as the first bishop of St. Louis. They converted the lower division of the college into
St. Louis University High School. The
Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul opened Mullanphy Hospital in St. Louis in 1828. The Jesuits established Saint Louis College as
Saint Louis University in 1829. Rosati dedicated the
Cathedral of St. Louis in 1834, making it the first Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River. As Catholic communities started increasing outside of St. Louis, the Vatican erected new dioceses from the Diocese of St. Louis. In 1837,
Pope Gregory XVI erected the
Diocese of Dubuque, covering the present-day states of Iowa, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. When Kenrick became coadjutor bishop, the diocese was heavily in debt due to the $90,000 cost of the new cathedral. With Rosati's assistance, the diocese received financial aid from Catholic organizations in Europe. Kenrick's brother
Francis Kenrick, bishop of the
Diocese of Philadelphia, also provided the diocese with assistance. In St. Louis, Kenrick instructed the cathedral priests to celebrate masses in English instead of French, as most of the congregation was now English-speaking. During his tenure as archbishop, Kain purchased property in St. Louis for a new cathedral. However, a tornado in the archdiocese depleted its funds, delaying the start of its construction.
1900 to 1950 Pope Pius X named Coadjutor Bishop
John J. Glennon from the
Diocese of Kansas City to serve as coadjutor archbishop of St. Louis in 1903 to assist the ailing Kain. When Kain died in October 1903, Glennon automatically succeeded him as archbishop. He opened the new
Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis in 1915, followed by the
minor seminary in
Shrewsbury. Also in 1915, the
Sisters of Loretto opened Webster College in
Webster Groves. It is today
Webster University. The Sisters of St. Joseph established Fontbonne College in 1923 in
Clayton. Now
Fontbonne University, it announced that it was closing in mid-2025. During the early 1940s, many local Jesuit priests challenged the
segregationist policies at the St. Louis Catholic schools. In 1943, Glennon blocked a young African-American woman from enrolling at Webster College. When some priests confronted Glennon about this, he called the integration plan a "Jesuit ploy." He transferred one of the complaining priests from an African-American parish. Saint Louis University began admitting African American students in the summer of 1943 after its president, Patrick Holloran, gained Glennon's approval. Glennon died in 1946.
Pope Pius XII appointed Archbishop
Joseph Ritter of the
Archdiocese of Indianapolis as the fourth archbishop of St. Louis in 1946. The archdiocese grew quickly during the
post-World War II economic boom. Ritter opened an average of three parishes per year in the City of St. Louis and
St. Louis County. He raised more than $125,000,000 () to build 60 new parishes and 16 high schools. As one of his first acts as archbishop, Ritter announced that Webster College would now accept African-American students. In 1947, Ritter also allowed the senior class of St. Joseph's High School, then the city's only African-American Catholic high school, to celebrate graduation for the first time at the cathedral, alongside white students. On August 9, 1947, Ritter announced an end to
racial segregation in the archdiocesan high schools. He declared, "The cross on top of our schools must mean something," and expressed his belief in "the equality of every soul before Almighty God". The Catholic Parents Association of Saint Louis and Saint Louis County, a group of white parents, threatened to sue Ritter, stating that his desegregation order violated Missouri state law. Ritter then issued a
pastoral letter, warning about possible
excommunication for Catholics "interfering with ecclesiastical office authority by having recourse to authority outside of the church". Ritter later ordered all the parish schools to "accept all children into parish schools without regard to race". Ritter started fundraising for the
Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital for Children in St. Louis in 1949. Ritter also developed what is now known as the Annual Catholic Appeal, which remains a primary source of financial support for many archdiocesan educational and charitable activities. In 1956, he established a mission in
La Paz, Bolivia, one of the first foreign missions sponsored by an American diocese. In 1964, following reforms of the
Second Vatican Council, Ritter celebrated the world's first authorized mass in English at
Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. In 1969, Carberry removed 60 seminarians from a class at the
Saint Louis University Divinity School because a
Presbyterian scholar was teaching a segment on
Pauls' epistles. In 1971, Carberry closed McBride High school in
North St. Louis, a largely black area. He was criticized for closing the school while subsidizing a swimming pool at John F. Kennedy High School in
Manchester, a wealthy white suburb. Carberry moved his own residence from the episcopal residence in St. Louis to suburban
Creve Coeur. In 1972, he established the Urban Services Apostolate for inner-city parishes. Carberry initially opposed the reception of
communion by hand, another Second Vatican Council reform. He believed that it was irreverent and risked the possibility of recipients stealing
hosts to use at
black masses. However, he finally permitted this practice in 1977. Carberry retired in 1979.
1980 to 1990 On January 24, 1980, Bishop John L. May from the
Diocese of Mobile was appointed the sixth archbishop of St. Louis by
Pope John Paul II. During his 12-year tenure, May encouraged an active dialogue between Christians of all denominations. He ordained
J. Terry Steib as the first
African American auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese. May also appointed the archdiocese's first
chief financial officer and the first woman to serve as
superintendent of Catholic schools. Due to health reasons, May retired in 1992. In 1994, John Paul II named Bishop Justin Rigali from the
Roman Curia as the seventh archbishop of St. Louis. During his tenure at
St. Louis, Rigali visited every Catholic high school in the archdiocese. Rigali opposed
collective bargaining by teachers and their efforts to unionize. Rigali was widely credited as an able administrator and effective fundraiser, if not popular with all.
2000 to 2010 In 2003, Rigali was appointed archbishop of the
Archdiocese of Philadelphia. To replace him, John Paul II that same year named Bishop
Raymond Burke from the
Diocese of La Crosse as the next archbishop of St. Louis. Burke invited the
Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP), a traditionalist Catholic order, into the archdiocese. He ordained two ICKSP priests in 2007, marking the first use in 40 years of the
Tridentine rite of ordination in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. During his tenure, Burke escalated a long-running dispute over the closing of
St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in St. Louis. In 2005, its pastor, Marek Bozek, led a Christmas Eve mass at the church, despite the archdiocese having closed it. Burke then "declare[d] that the church was in 'schism'", and excommunicated Bozek and the church lay board. The church then broke away from the archdiocese and sued it for ownership of its assets. In 2012, a court awarded the assets to St. Stanislaus. In 2008, the Vatican named Burke as prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the
Apostolic Signatura in Rome. Bishop
Robert Carlson took office as the ninth archbishop of St. Louis in 2009.
2010 to present In 2014, after trying to reconcile with the St. Stanislaus Kostka board and parishioners, Carlson surrendered its property claims to the church. As part of the agreement, the church administration agreed not to claim any affiliation with the Catholic Church. In response to the 2018
grand jury report concerning clerical sexual abuse in
Pennsylvania, Carlson invited the
Missouri attorney general's office to inspect the archdiocesan files and to produce a report on
clerical abuse in Missouri. Carlson retired in 2020. Bishop
Mitchell T. Rozanski from Springfield in Massachusetts replaced Carlson as the next archbishop of St. Louis. In 2022, the archdiocese ended its participation in the
National School Lunch Program, established in 1946 to provide lunch to poor students, stating that it did not want to comply with regulations under the Civil Rights Act. The archdiocese stated that it would start its own free lunch program. In May 2023, Rozanski announced All Things New, a plan to reduce the number of parishes in the archdiocese from 178 to 134. Seven parishes filed appeals of the closures in August 2023 with the
Dicastery for the Clergy in Rome, which decided to accept appeals from two parishes. The Dicastery in June 2024 rejected the two appeals. In June 2024, the archdiocese released its report "Slavery in the Historic Archdiocese of St. Louis". It identified 70
enslaved people who had been owned by Bishop Dubourg, Bishop Rosati, and diocesan clergy prior to the end of the American Civil War.
Sexual abuse In 2004, the Archdiocese of St. Louis paid $1.7 million to settle sexual abuse claims. In 2018, Archbishop Carlson testified in court that he was unsure whether he knew in the 1980s that sexual assault of a minor was a crime. He also stated that he did not know when he realized that fact. In July 2019, the archdiocese released the names of 64 clergy who were credibly accused of committing acts of sexual abuse. On August 16, 2019, the "sexually violent priest" Frederick Lenczycki, who had served prison time in Illinois between 2004 and 2009 for acts of sexual abuse, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a boy in St. Louis County. In June 2023, the archdiocese agreed to pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit by a man who alleged he was raped when an altar boy from fourth through sixth grade The cathedral contains the largest collection of mosaics in the world. It was dedicated in 1926 on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of St. Louis as a diocese. The cathedral mosaics took 60 years for completion. The Vatican designated the Cathedral of St. Louis a basilica in 1997 on the 150th anniversary of the archdiocese. ==Bishops==