1600 to 1800 During the 17th century, present-day Illinois was part of the French colony of
New France. The Diocese of Quebec, which had jurisdiction over the colony, sent numerous French missionaries to the region. It was estimated that 15,000 to 20,000 Native American converts and French trappers and settlers throughout the Illinois region were tended to by these Jesuit missionaries. After the British took control of New France in 1763, the
Archdiocese of Quebec retained jurisdiction over missions in the Illinois area. However, most of the French Catholics in the area migrated to
Louisiana.
1800 to 1857 With the creation of the
Diocese of Bardstown in Kentucky in 1810, supervision of the Illinois missions shifted there. Catholic Irish and German immigrants started entering the Illinois region in the early 1800s. In 1827, the
Diocese of St. Louis assumed jurisdiction over the western half of Illinois. In 1834, the Vatican erected the
Diocese of Vincennes, which included both Indiana and eastern Illinois. The first Catholic church in
Quincy, St. Peter's was opened in 1839 and the first church in Alton in 1843. In 1848, the first Catholic church in Springfield, St. John the Baptist, was constructed. The pope did not appoint another bishop for Quincy.
1857 to 1863 In 1857, Pius IX suppressed the Diocese of Quincy and erected the new Diocese of Alton, keeping the same boundaries. He appointed Reverend
Henry Juncker as the first bishop of Alton. At the time of Juncker's arrival, the diocese contained 58 churches, 30 mission stations, 18 priests, and 50,000 Catholics. Needing more priests, he traveled to Europe in 1857 to recruit clergy from France, Germany, Ireland, and Italy. The first Catholic church in
Decatur, St. Patrick, opened in 1857. Juncker completed the first cathedral in the diocese in 1859. He later founded six girls'
academies, a
seminary, two hospitals, and one
orphanage. During one stay in
Randolph County, a delegation from
Red Bud, Illinois, asked Juncker to visit them. The townspeople said they had never seen a priest there. During his visit to Red Bud, Juncker heard confession from 1,000 Catholics and received a donation of land from a
Protestant businessman for a new church.
1863 to 1923 Juncker died in 1868. By the time of his death, the Diocese of Alton had 125 churches, over 100 priests, and 80,000 Catholics. Baltes issued a pastoral letter in 1879 that banned Catholics in his diocese from reading newspapers or journals that criticized the Catholic Church. He banned contemporary music from church services, replacing it with the
Gregorian chant and
Cecilian music. After Baltes died in 1886, Pope Leo XIII appointed
James Ryan from the Diocese of Peoria as the third bishop of Alton. During his 35-year tenure, Ryan established 40 new
churches and six
hospitals; the Catholic population of the diocese increased from 70,000 to over 87,000. He held the first diocesan
synod in February 1889. He appointed
James Griffin of Chicago as the first bishop of the new diocese. Griffin dedicated the new
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield in 1928. During his tenure as bishop, Griffin erected 51 new churches, schools,
convents and charitable institutions; the total cost spent in his first ten years was close to $6.5 million. He established
Marquette Catholic High School in Alton and
Springfield Junior College in Springfield. Springfield Junior College is now Benedictine University of Springfield. Griffin died in 1948.
Pope Pius XII in 1948 appointed
William O'Connor from Chicago as the second bishop of Springfield. O'Connor instituted the
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in 1950, initiated the diocesan development fund in 1952 for
missionary work within the diocese, and founded the diocesan Latin School in 1954 for training young men preparing to enter the priesthood. He held diocesan
synods in 1953 and 1963. The next bishop of Springfield was Bishop
Joseph McNicholas, an auxiliary bishop of the
Archdiocese of St. Louis, appointed by
Pope Paul VI in 1975. He hosted the first Midwest Regional Meeting of the
St. Vincent de Paul Society to be held in downstate Illinois, and in 1978 appointed the first
nun to the position of superintendent of
Catholic schools. In 2009,
Pope Benedict XVI named Lucas as archbishop of the
Archdiocese of Omaha and appointed Bishop
Thomas Paprocki, auxiliary bishop of Chicago, as Lucas' replacement.
2010 to the Present Paprocki invited the
Norbertines from
St. Michael's Abbey in
California to establish a community in the diocese. The Norbertines established the Corpus Christi Priory on July 1, 2023, to be the home of the Evermode Institute.
Sexual abuse In 1985, after receiving complaints from a parishioners, police arrested Alvin J. Campbell, pastor of St. Maurice Church in
Morrisonville on charges of sexually abusing a minor. Campbell had served in the
US Army Chaplain Corps during the 1960s and early 1970s. When he applied to enter the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois in 1977, an Army official warned the diocese that Campbell had a moral problem with men and boys. Later in 1985, Campbell pleaded guilty but mentally ill to having sexually abused seven teenage boys between 1982 and 1985. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Removed from ministry in 1985, Campbell was laicized in 1992. Walter Weerts pleaded guilty in 1986 to three counts of sexual abuse. Facing parent complaints about Weets starting in the 1960s, the diocese covered up his crimes and transfer him to different parishes. Before Weerts' sentence, Bishop Ryan asked the court to grant him probation, attesting to his fine behavior. Weerts was sentenced to six years in prison and was laicized by the Vatican in 1989. Weerts later got a degree from
New Mexico State University, then moved to South Florida, taking a position at Palm Beach Community College (now
Palm Beach State College) teaching horticulture, and teaching at a local high school as part of his duties with the community college, as well as giving horticultural lectures to middle schools in the area. School officials stated that Weerts denied being convicted of a crime on his application and were not made aware of his conviction when they called references, including the diocese. It was only in 1998 that the school was made aware of the conviction after students uncovered his past. There was also a concern he continued abusing children because during the school's investigation, several students stated they used Weerts as a babysitter, and it was discovered that a 10-year-old boy was living with him. Weerts fled the state in late 1998 shortly after his past was uncovered. Having continued to confer
confirmation and celebrate
mass after his resignation as bishop in 1999, Bishop Daniel Ryan agreed in 2004 to suspend his public ministry. In 2006, an independent investigative report was commissioned by Bishop Lucas. In its report, the Special Panel on Clergy Misconduct declared that Ryan "engaged in improper sexual conduct and used his office to conceal his activities". Ryan also fostered "a culture of secrecy...that discouraged faithful priests from coming forward with information about misconduct" by other clergy in the diocese. On May 23, 2023, Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul released a report on Catholic clergy child sex abuse in Illinois. The multi-year investigation found that more than 450 Catholic clergy in Illinois abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950. == Statistics ==