Preceding the Diocese of Saint Paul (1698 – 1850) French control The first Catholic presence in present-day Minnesota was recorded in 1680.
Louis Hennepin, a Belgian Franciscan
Recollect and explorer, found a waterfall on the
upper Mississippi River. Hennepin named it
Chutes de Saint-Antoine (St. Anthony Falls) after his patron saint,
Anthony of Padua. The French formally claimed the region in 1689, making it part of
New France. In 1727, René Boucher de La Perrière, a French military officer, and Michel Guignas, a Jesuit priest, built
Fort Beauharnois on the shore of
Lake Pepin. They established St. Michael the Archangel, the first Catholic chapel in Minnesota. It was located the next year, where it remained occupied until the start of the
French-Indian War between France and Great Britain With the end of the war in 1763, the Spanish took over the New France territories in the
Great Plains and
Old Northwest, including Minnesota.
American control After the
Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the United States gained control of vast areas in the continent, including present day Minnesota.
Pope Leo XII in 1826 erected the
Diocese of Saint Louis, centered in St. Louis, Missouri, giving it jurisdiction over Minnesota and other parts of the region. The first group of European Catholic settlers were a group of Swiss families who moved from
Fort Garry in present-day
Manitoba to establish the village of Saint Pierre near
Fort Snelling in Minnesota. With the gradual increase of population about the chapel, the community developed into a village known as Saint Paul's Landing. This became the city of Saint Paul.
Diocese of Saint Paul (1850–1888) Joseph Crétin On July 19, 1850,
Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Saint Paul in Minnesota, taking its territory from the Diocese of Dubuque. The new diocese covered all of the new
Minnesota Territory, which included Minnesota and the future states of
North Dakota and
South Dakota It was made part of the ecclesiastic province of St. Louis The pope named Monsignor
Joseph Crétin of St. Louis as the first bishop of Saint Paul. The log chapel built by Galtier in 1841 became the first Cathedral of Saint Paul. Large contingents of Irish and German Catholics arrived, locating in St. Paul and in communities on the Mississippi,
St. Croix, and Minnesota Rivers. Five months after his consecration in 1850, Cretin dedicated a second cathedral, constructed of brick, in Saint Paul. However, the rapid growth of the diocese soon rendered this building obsolete.The number of Catholics in the diocese continued to grow, with many coming from
Bohemia (present-day
Czech Republic) and Poland. The number of priests grew with the increase of the people, and they were so chosen as to correspond to the needs of the parishes. Hospitals were opened at Minneapolis and
New Ulm, orphan asylums were erected at St. Paul and Minneapolis, and homes were established for the aged poor.
Archdiocese of Saint Paul (1888–1966) John Ireland John Ireland was known as a strong-willed figure, known as the "consecrated blizzard of the Northwest". In 1885, Ireland established the
College of Saint Thomas and
Saint Paul Seminary in St. Paul and
Saint Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights He constructed the
Basilica of Saint Mary.
Pope Leo XIII elevated the see to the rank of archdiocese on May 4, 1888, and its name was changed to reflect this. Leo XIII erected the Diocese of Winona in 1889, taking southern Minnesota from the Archdiocese of Saint Paul. While he was an empire builder, Ireland was not without controversy; the author of
The Church and Modern Society (1897), Ireland opposed the use of foreign languages in American Catholic churches and parochial schools. National (ethnic) parishes were common at the time because of the large influx of immigrants to the United States from European countries. In this, he differed from
Michael Corrigan, archbishop of New York, who believed that the more quickly Catholics gave up their native languages, customs, and traditions in order to assimilate into a
Protestant culture, the sooner they would forsake their religion as well. Different views on the so-called "Americanization" of the Catholic Church in the United States split the hierarchy in the 1890s. Ireland's insistence on
Americanization led to
Alexis Toth and his Ruthenian Catholic congregation leaving the Catholic Church to join the
Russian Orthodox Church. In 1907, Ireland laid the cornerstone for the fourth Cathedral of Saint Paul; it was dedicated in 1915. In his address at his installation on March 25, 1919, Dowling described himself as "the unknown, the unexpected, [and] the undistinguished successor of the great Archbishop Ireland." Downling's legacy included establishing
Nazareth Hall Preparatory Seminary in Arden Hills and the Archbishop Ireland's Education Fund. He improved Saint Paul Seminary and served on the board of Education of the
National Catholic Welfare Council (NCWC)). Author Marvin O'Connell credited Dowling as "one of the leading lights" from the NCWC's inception, who headed NCWC's education department, which put him in direct contact with the Catholic Education Association. Dowling died on November 29, 1930. In 1941, the archdiocese hosted the
Ninth National Eucharistic Congress, which attracted hundreds of thousands of attendees and culminated in a Eucharistic procession that involved 80,000 people. Events for the congress were held at the
Minnesota State Fairgrounds, the
Saint Paul Union Depot, the
Minneapolis Auditorium, the
St. Paul Auditorium, the
Cathedral of St. Paul and the
Basilica of St. Mary elsewhere in Minnesota. On June 16, 1956,
Pope Pius XII appointed Bishop
William O. Brady as
coadjutor archbishop of Saint Paul due to Murray's failing health. Murray died of
cancer in St. Paul on October 11, 1956, at age 79. He is interred at Resurrection Cemetery in
Mendota Heights.
William O. Brady Brady succeeded
John Gregory Murray as archbishop of Saint Paul upon Murray's death on October 11, 1956. The pope named Monsignor
Alphonse Schladweiler of Saint Paul as the first bishop of New Ulm. Brady died on October 1, 1961.
Leo Binz On December 16, 1961
Pope John XXIII named
Leo Binz as the fifth archbishop of Saint Paul. He was installed on April 28, 1962.
Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis (1966 to present) On July 11, 1966, the
Holy See altered the name of the archdiocese to reflect the equal stature of the Twin Cities by naming the
Basilica of Saint Mary in
Minneapolis as
co-cathedral of the archdiocese and adding Minneapolis to the title of the archdiocese. Subsequently, Binz became the first archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.
Pope Paul VI accepted Binz's resignation on May 21, 1975.
John Roach John Roach, originally a priest of the archdiocese and at the time of Binz's resignation an auxiliary bishop, was appointed archbishop to succeed Binz. On February 22, 1994,
Harry Flynn was appointed by
Pope John Paul II as the
coadjutor archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Roach retired on September 8, 1995.
Harry Flynn With Roach's retirement, Flynn assumed the full archbishopric. After serving as archbishop for 12 years, Flynn requested that the pope assign him a coadjutor archbishop. On April 24, 2007,
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Bishop
John Nienstedt as Flynn's coadjutor.
John Nienstedt When the pope accepted Flynn's retirement on May 2, 2008, Nienstedt succeeded him as the eighth archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Nienstedt's tenure as archbishop was tumultuous. In October 2010, Nienstedt announced a strategic plan that called for 21 parishes to be merged into 14 neighboring parishes. These and two later mergers reduced the number of parishes in the archdiocese from 213 in October 2010 to 188 in July 2013. In November 2012, Curtis Wehmeyer pleaded guilty to 20 sex abuse and child pornography charges. In 2013,
MPR News obtained a letter revealing that archdiocesan officials, including Nienstedt and vicar general Kevin McDonough, had known of the archdiocesan decision in 2011 to cover up an allegation about sexual abuse. In 2015, Wehmeyer was
laicized by the Vatican while serving a five-year prison sentence. On June 15, 2015,
Pope Francis accepted the resignations of Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop
Lee A. Piché. The same day, Francis appointed
Bernard Hebda as its
apostolic administrator to serve until a new archbishop would be installed, although Hebda remained as the coadjutor archbishop of Newark.
Bernard Hebda During Hebda's term as administrator, the archdiocese reached agreement on a civil settlement with officials of
Ramsey County on procedures to prevent
child sexual abuse. On March 24, 2016, Hebda was named archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. He was installed in the Cathedral of Saint Paul on May 13, 2016. In May 2018, the archdiocese agreed to pay victims of clergy sexual abuse a $210 million in settlement, which awaited court approval. By the time the settlement was issued, 91 priests who served in the archdiocese were accused of sexually abusing 450 victims. In June 2018, the archdiocese filed for
bankruptcy reorganization in order to find enough money to pay for the settlement. Once approved, the settlement became the second largest in any Catholic bankruptcy case in United States history and largest overall for any archdiocese which was forced into bankruptcy. In September 2018, survivors of clergy abuse officially concluded a month-long vote which resulted in the approval the settlement; the vote had started on August 21. The settlement was then approved by a
U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge. In June 2019, Hebda announced the calling an
archdiocesan synod. This would be the first synod held in the archdiocese in eighty years. Two years later, the synod was officially convoked. It culminated in June 2022 with an archdiocesan synodal assembly. == Coat of arms ==