1750 to 1800 In 1754, the first mass within the present-day Diocese of Pittsburgh was celebrated at
Fort Duquesne in present-day Pittsburgh by a French
Franciscan chaplain. A chapel was built at the fort, dedicated to the
Virgin Mary under the title of "The Assumption of Our Lady of the Beautiful River." When the French destroyed the fort in 1758, the mission became a ruin. The region passed into British rule with the signing of the
Treaty of Paris in 1763. The region became part of the
Province of Pennsylvania. Unlike the other British colonies in North America, the Province of Pennsylvania did not ban Catholics from the colony or threaten priests with imprisonment. However, the colony required any Catholics seeing public office to take an oath to
Protestantism. In 1784, a year after the end of the
American Revolution,
Pope Pius VI erected the
Apostolic Prefecture of United States of America, including all of the new United States. In 1789, Pius VI converted the prefecture to the
Diocese of Baltimore, covering all of the United States. With the passage of the
US Bill of Rights in 1791, Catholics received full freedom of worship.
1800 to 1850 In 1808,
Pope Pius VII erected the
Diocese of Philadelphia, covering all of Pennsylvania. In 1843, the four American bishops and one archbishop met in the
Fifth Provincial Council of Baltimore. They recommended that the Vatican erect a Diocese of Pittsburgh and nominated
Michael O'Connor, vicar general of Western Pennsylvania and pastor of
St. Paul's Church in
Pittsburgh, to be appointed the first bishop. The Vatican erected the Diocese of Pittsburgh on August 11, 1843, by taking its territory from the Diocese of Philadelphia. The new diocese covered all of Western Pennsylvania. The pope appointed O'Connor as bishop. After his consecration in Rome, O'Connor traveled to Ireland to recruit clergy for his new diocese. He found eight seminarians from
Maynooth College, a seminary in Maynooth, and seven
Sisters of Mercy from
Dublin. O'Connor arrived in Pittsburgh in December 1843. In 1844, O'Connor founded a girls' academy and St. Paul's orphan asylum, a chapel for African Americans, the
Pittsburgh Catholic and St. Michael's Seminary. To serve the German immigrants in his diocese, he welcomed the
Benedictine monks, who founded
Saint Vincent Archabbey in
Latrobe,
1850 to 1900 In 1853, the Vatican erected the
Diocese of Erie, taking the northern counties from the Diocese of Pittsburgh. After O'Connor resigned in 1860,
Michael Domenec from Philadelphia was consecreated as the second bishop of Pittsburgh. After the
American Civil War ended in 1865, the diocese went heavily in debt to finance expansion projects. The
Panic of 1873 resulted in a debt crisis for the diocese. In 1876, Pius IX erected the
Diocese of Allegheny, taking several counties from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and named Domenec as its first bishop. He was succeeded by
John Tuigg of Pittsburgh. During his tenure as bishop, Tuigg succeeded in stabilizing the diocesan finances. The Pittsburgh Catholic College of the Holy Ghost, the predecessor of
Duquesne University, was founded in 1878 in Pittsburgh by a group of Holy Ghost priests from Germany. After Tuigg suffered his first stroke,
Pope Leo XIII appointed Richard Phelan of Pittsburgh as
coadjutor bishop in 1885. In July 1889, the Vatican reversed course, suppressed the Diocese of Allegheny and reintegrated all of its territory back into the Diocese of Pittsburgh. Canevin succeeded Phelan after his death in 1904. The
Brothers of the Christian Schools opened
Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh in 1927. The Sisters of Mercy opened
Carlow College, a women's college, in Pittsburgh in 1929. It is now Carlow University In 1948, Monsignor
John Dearden of Pittsburgh was appointed
coadjutor bishop of the diocese by
Pope Pius XII to assist Boyle. When Boyle died in 1950, Dearden automatically succeeded him as bishop. Dearden was appointed archbishop of the
Archdiocese of Detroit in 1958 To replace Dearden, Pius XII named Bishop
John Wright from the
Diocese of Worcester. Following the council's advancements in
ecumenism, he believed that an "immediate unity in good works and charity" would arise between Catholics and
Protestants. In 1961, Wright opened the Bishop's Latin School in Pittsburgh as the pre-seminary high school of the diocese. La Roche College was founded in
McCandless, Pennsylvania, in 1963 by the
Sisters of Divine Providence as a private college for religious sisters. Today it is La Roche University. Wright promoted music and culture during his time in Pittsburgh. He commissioned the composer
Mary Lou Williams, to perform a
jazz mass at a local Catholic school, and helped her to establish the
Pittsburgh Jazz Festival. In 1969,
Pope Paul VI appointed Wright as the prefect of the
Congregation for the Clergy in Rome.
1980 to 2000 Leonard resigned as bishop of Pittsburgh in 1983, due to severe arthritis.
Pope John Paul II then named Auxiliary Bishop
Anthony Bevilacqua of the
Diocese of Brooklyn as the tenth bishop of Pittsburgh that same year. In 1987, John Paul II appointed Bevilacqua as archbishop of Philadelphia. The next bishop of Pittsburgh was Auxiliary Bishop
Donald Wuerl from the
Archdiocese of Seattle, appointed by John Paul II in 1988. Wuerl reorganized the diocese in response to demographic changes, the decline of the local
steel industry, and the diocese's weak financial position. He closed 73 church buildings, including 37 churches, and reduced 331 parishes to 214 parishes through mergers. Wuerl was named archbishop of the
Archdiocese of Washington in 2006.
2000 to present Pope Benedict XVI appointed bishop
David Zubik from the
Diocese of Green Bay as the twelfth bishop of Pittsburgh in 2007. In 2012, the diocese joined other parties in suing the
Obama administration regarding the 2010
Affordable Care Act (ACA). The diocese objected to a regulation that would force Catholic hospitals and other such institutions to provide health insurance coverage of
contraceptives to their employees. These cases were consolidated and made it to the Supreme Court as
Zubik v. Burwell. The court vacated a lower court ruling and forced the cases back to the lower courts. In 2015, Zubik announced On Mission for the Church ALIVE!, an initiative to start reorganizing parishes in 2018. The plan was to merge 188 parishes to 57 parish groupings served by clergy teams. Zubik formulated the ALIVE! plan in response to decreasing mass attendance, a significant drop in
offertory collections and a declining number of priests; by 2025 the diocese was projected to have a 50% drop in the number of priests from 2018. In 2018, the diocese closed Saint Rosalia Academy in Greenfield. It also merged North American Martyrs School and Saint Bernadette School in
Monroeville into the new Divine Mercy Academy. In 2020, the Pittsburgh-East Regional Catholic Elementary Schools (PERCES) closed East Catholic School in Forest Hills and Saint Maria Goretti in
Bloomfield. PERCES also merged Saint Anne School in
Castle Shannon, Saint Bernard School in
Mount Lebanon, Our Lady of Grace School in
Scott Township, and Saint Thomas More School in
Bethel Park into one school program. == Coat of arms ==