1500 to 1875 The first Catholic presence in present-day Oklahoma may have been the expeditions of the Spanish explorers
Francisco Vásquez y Coronado and
Hernando de Soto in 1541 and 1542. However, there is no evidence of missionary activity in the region until the 1830s. With the passage by the
US Congress of the
Indian Removal Act of 1830, tens of thousands of Native Americans from the southern and midwestern states were moved west to the
Indian Territory, which included Oklahoma. The first Catholic presence in present-day Oklahoma, then known officially as the
Indian Territory, was in 1830. Charles Van Quickenborne, a Jesuit priest, traveled from
St. Louis, Missouri, to minister to
Osage Nation people in the Cabin Creek area. At this time, the Indian Territory was under the official Catholic jurisdiction of the
Diocese of Little Rock. Over the next several decades, missionary priests from Arkansas would make periodic trips into the territory to visit the Native American peoples.
1875 to 1905 In 1875,
Isadore Robot, a French
Benedictine priest arrived in the Indian Territory. His goal was to establish an abbey for other members of their order being persecuted in France. In 1876,
Pope Pius IX erected the Apostolic Prefecture of Indian Territory, removing the Indian Territory from the Diocese of Little Rock. The pope named Robot as the first prefect of the territory. The Benedictines later opened the Sacred Heart Mission on the land of the
Potawatomi Nation. That mission later became
St. Gregory's Abbey and College. In 1880, Robot opened a girls school at the Potawatomi Nation, staffed by several nuns from New Orleans. In 1884, Robot opened
Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish at
Lehigh, the second Catholic church in Indian Territory. Robot resigned as prefect in 1887. In 1891, recognizing the increasing population of the Indian Territory,
Pope Leo XIII elevated the Apostolic Prefecture of Indian Territory to the Apostolic Vicariate of Indian Territory. The pope named
Theophile Meerschaert from the
Diocese of Natchez as the
apostolic vicar. At the time of Meerschaert's arrival, the new vicariate had three diocesan priests, 23 Benedictine monks, 21 churches, seven day schools, five Native American boarding schools, one college, one monastery, six convents and a Catholic population of approximately 5,000. The first Catholic church in Oklahoma City,
St. Joseph's, was completed in 1889.
1905 to 1972 In 1905,
Pope Pius X erected the Diocese of Oklahoma City, suppressing the apostolic vicariate. The pope named Meerschaert as its first bishop of the new diocese. St. Joseph's Church was designated as its cathedral. By the time of his death in 1924, the Catholic population in the diocese had increased elevenfold. He successfully resisted the agitation of the
Ku Klux Klan in the diocese and worked as the "Extension Bishop." In 1930, Pius XI renamed the Diocese of Oklahoma as the Diocese of Oklahoma City-Tulsa, reflected population trends in Oklahoma. Kelley remained as bishop. When Kelley died in 1948, McGuiness succeeded him as bishop. During his nine-year administration, McGuinness saw the Catholic population in the state grow by almost 40 percent and received 1,242 adult converts in 1957 alone. Priestly and religious vocations increased and he made trips to
Ireland and
Poland to recruit clergy. After the
Second Vatican Council in Rome between 1962 and 1965, Reed introduced the use of
vernacular in the
mass and an emphasis on pastoral over administrative skills in bishops. In 1966, a group picketed his residence and called for his removal. They accused Reed of following "un-Catholic" policies and participating in a "worldwide atheistic conspiracy for world domination" led by
communists. Reed died in 1971. Auxiliary Bishop
John R. Quinn from the Diocese of San Diego succeeded Reed in 1971.
1972 to 1992 On December 13, 1972, Paul VI elevated the Diocese of Oklahoma City-Tulsa to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. At the same time, he erected the
Diocese of Tulsa, consisting of eastern Oklahoma. The new archdiocese now contained the counties of central and western Oklahoma. The Dioceses of Little Rock and Tulsa became
suffragan dioceses of the archdiocese. Quinn became the first archbishop of Oklahoma City. Quinn became archbishop of San Francisco in 1977. He founded the Office of Hispanic Ministry in the 1970s and learned to speak Spanish at age 68 so that he could celebrate mass in that language. In October 1981, Salatka celebrated a
funeral mass in Oklahoma City for
Stanley Rother, a priest from the diocese. Rother had been murdered by three assassins in July 1981 while on a mission in
Guatemala. Salatka had recalled Rother to Oklahoma in January 1981 due to threats on his life. However, Rother persuaded him to allow his return to Guatemala. Salatka retired in 1992. Beltran became the official publisher of the
Sooner Catholic, a bimonthly
newspaper for Catholics in
Oklahoma. Beltran's sermons were featured in each number of the newspaper during his tenure. Beltran retired in 2009. In 2014, Coakley sued a
Satanist group in Oklahoma City, saying that they had stolen
consecrated host from a church to use in a so-called
black mass ceremony at the
Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City. However, when the host was returned to the archdiocese a few days later, Coakley dropped the lawsuit. In 2017, Rother was beatified during a mass at the
Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City.
Pope Francis had declared him a
martyr, saying he had been killed
in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith). The
Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in Oklahoma City was dedicated by Coakley in February 2023.The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board in October 2023 approved the creation of the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, the first religious
charter school in the nation. It was immediately challenged in court as violating the
separation of church and state. The
Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against St. Isidore in June 2025.As of 2026, Coakley is the archbishop of Oklahoma City.
Sex abuse In 1999, James Rapp, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, pleaded
no contest to sexually abusing two boys during the 1990s in
Duncan, Oklahoma. He was sentenced to 40 years in state prison. Rapp had previously been accused of sexually abusing children at a Catholic junior high school in
Jackson, Michigan, in the 1980s. After those accusations, Rapp's religious order sent him away for eight months of psychiatric treatment. When Rapp finished treatment, Archbishop Salatka approved his transfer to the archdiocese. In 2003, the archdiocese settled a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by a Rapp victim in 1999. The plaintiff, Casey Johnson, said that Rapp sexually molested him three times as a minor. ==Bishops==