1600 to 1783 The first Catholics in present-day Maine were French Jesuit priests who established missions among the
Native American tribes. Saint Sauveur mission was founded on
Mount Desert Island in 1613. Assumption Mission was established in
Augusta in 1646. The Catholic mission to the
Penobscot Native Americans was established in 1688 by
Louis-Pierre Thury. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Maine area was contested territory among the British, the French and later the Americans. In 1724, militiamen from the British colonies raided the
Abenaki village at
Norridgewock, killing scores of inhabitants along with their Jesuit priest,
Sébastien Rale.
Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus, the future first bishop of the
Diocese of Boston, performed missionary work with the Penobscot and
Passamaquoddy in Maine in 1798.
Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Boston in 1808, including all of New England in its jurisdiction. In later years, Cheverus made an agreement with Archbishop
Joseph-Octave Plessis that allowed the
Archdiocese of Quebec to send priests to St. John's Valley and other areas in Maine that were close to British
Lower Canada and had large
French-Canadian communities. In 1820, Maine became its own state. The early 19th century saw an influx of Irish Catholic immigrants to Maine. In 1833, St. Dominic's became the first Catholic church in Portland. Bangor built its first Catholic Church, St. Michael's, in 1834.
1853 to 1875 On July 29, 1853,
Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Portland. He took
New Hampshire and
Maine from the Diocese of Boston to create the new diocese, making it a suffragan of the
Archdiocese of New York. The pope appointed
David Bacon of the Archdiocese of New York as the first bishop of Portland. At the beginning of Bacon's tenure, the diocese held only six priests and eight churches. When he died in 1874, it contained 63 churches, 52 priests, 23 parish schools, and a Catholic population of about 80,000. Catholics faced bias and violence in some areas of the state. Mobs burned churches in
Bath and
Lewiston and tarred and feathered the priest in
Ellsworth. He moved the Diocese of Portland from the Archdiocese of New York to the new archdiocese. That same month, the pope appointed
James Healy from Boston as the new bishop. Healy was the first African-American Catholic bishop in the United States, although he kept his racial identity a secret. Healy supervised the setup of the new Diocese of Manchester. Early into his tenure as bishop, Healy became involved in a conflict with one of his priests, Jean Ponsardin of
Biddeford, Maine. Healy suspected that Ponsardin had been stealing money that the diocese had given him to build a new church. After four years of construction, the building only had a basement and unfinished exterior walls. Healy refused to give Ponsardin any more money and suspended him from ministry in October 1877. Healy finally agreed to pay Ponsardin's debts on the condition that he leave the diocese. This action reduced the diocese to its current territory, the State of Maine. By the time Healy died in 1900, the diocese had 92 priests, 86 churches, and 96,400 Catholics.
1900 to 1925 Leo XIII appointed
William O'Connell in 1901 as the new bishop of Portland. After five years as bishop there, he was appointed
coadjutor archbishop of Boston. To replace O'Connell,
Pope Pius X in 1906 appointed
Louis Walsh from Boston. During his tenure as bishop, Walsh established several new
parishes and schools, and renovated the cathedral. His tenure was also marked by a wave of immigrants from
Poland, Italy, Slovakia, and
Lithuania. He met vocal opposition from groups of
French-Canadian parishioners over the ownership of parish property, leading Walsh to place six of their leaders under
interdict. Walsh died in 1924.
1925 to 1950 Auxiliary Bishop
John Murray of the
Archdiocese of Hartford was appointed by
Pope Pius XI in 1925 as bishop of Portland. In 1928, the pope renamed the Diocese of Portland as the Diocese of Portland in Maine. This action was to avoid confusion with the newly erected
Archdiocese of Portland in Portland, Oregon. During his five-year tenure in Portland, Murray established thirty new parishes and a diocesan weekly newspaper,
Church World, in 1930. During the
Great Depression, Murray organized relief committees to raise money for the homeless and unemployed families. He was forced to
mortgage church property to continue funding hospitals, orphanages, and other institutions. Consequently, the diocese accumulated millions of dollars in debt. Murray was appointed archbishop of the
Archdiocese of St. Paul in 1932. Murray's replacement as bishop was
Joseph McCarthy of Hartford, named by Pius XI in 1932. McCarthy used his power as a
corporation sole to alleviate the debt accumulated by Murray by offering the diocesan property holdings as
security for a successful
bond issue. By 1936, he had stabilized the diocesan financial situation. He also helped provide housing for the elderly and expanded the diocesan Bureau of Human Relations. On February 13, 2024, Pope Francis announced the appointment of
James T. Ruggieri from the
Diocese of Providence as Deeley's successor.
Sexual abuse In 1998, nine male former students at the Jesuit-run
Cheverus High School in Portland sued the Diocese of Portland, stating that they had been molested by
James Talbot, a teacher, and Charles Malia, a coach. The plaintiffs accused both Cheverus and the diocese of hiding information about the abusers, and said that both parties knew about previous accusations against Talbot in Massachusetts. Prior to working in Portland, Talbot had been employed at the
Boston College High School in Boston. After receiving accusations of sexual abuse against him in Boston, the Jesuit Order had transferred Talbot to Cheverus. • Malia retired in 1998, but did not admit his guilt until 2000. Due to the statute of limitations in Maine, Malia could not be prosecuted for any of his crimes. In 2016, the Diocese of Portland settled six lawsuits for sexual abuse for an estimated $1.2 million. The male plaintiffs accused
Bangor priest James Vallely of sexually abusing them between 1958 and 1977. In 2005, a former priest wrote to the diocese about Vallely, saying that Bishop Feeney had received sexual abuse allegations from five boys about Vallely during the 1950's. Feeney simply transferred Valley out of Bangor to another parish in a different town. In 1993, after several men reported abuse by Vallely to the diocese, he was suspended and sent to Florida for treatment. By January 2019, the
Society of Jesus' Northeast Province in the United States had acknowledged seven accused Jesuit clergy had taught at Cheverus. In August 2019, Bishop Deeley launched an abuse reporting system for the diocese. In 2002, Gerry removed two priests, Michael Doucette and John Audibert, from ministry in parishes in northern Maine. The two men had admitted to sexually abusing different boys during the 1980s. Gerry said that the men would not be transferred to other parishes. Audibert was permanently from priesthood functions in 2006 and told to live a live of prayer and
penance. Doucette was removed permanently from ministry in 2009. In April 2020, the
Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld ten of Paquin's eleven convictions and vacated one of them. Paquin was laicized in 2004. ==Bishops==