TheArchdiocese of Boston (Latin:Archidiœcesis Bostoniensis) is an archdiocese of theCatholic Church in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its mother church is theCathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston.
The Diocese of Boston was erected in 1808, branching off from theDiocese of Baltimore. It grew rapidly during the 19th century; today it is the fourth largest archdiocese in the United States. Starting in 2002, the archdiocese faceda sexual abuse scandal which touched off investigations ofCatholic Church sexual abuse cases throughout the United States.Richard G. Henning is the archbishop.
During the 17th century, the Massachusetts colonies enacted legal restrictions on Catholics,Anglicans,Quakers, and other non-Puritan Protestants. They also enacted specific bans on Catholic worship. By 1700, the BritishProvince of Massachusetts Bay had made it a crime, with a potential life sentence, for a Catholic priest to reside in the colony.[3]
With the start of theAmerican Revolutionary War in 1776, attitudes towards Catholics shifted in the American colonies. The rebel leaders needed to gain the support of Catholics for their cause. In addition, the alliance with Catholic France fostered a more favorable attitude among Americans towards Catholicism. TheConstitution of the new Commonwealth of Massachusetts, written by future US PresidentJohn Adams and ratified in 1780, established religious freedom for Catholics in the new state.[3] With the Massachusetts constitution being the first state constitution in the United States, its framework of government became a model for the constitutions of other states and, eventually, for the federal constitution.
In 1788, the Abbé de la Poterie, a former French naval chaplain, celebrated the city's first public mass in a convertedHuguenot chapel at 24 School Street in Boston. It became Holy Cross Church, the first Catholic church in the Commonwealth. By 1800, two refugee priests from theFrench Revolution, Francis Anthony Matignon andJohn Cheverus, were ministering to the few Catholics in the region. They raised the funds to build a larger building, the Church of the Holy Cross (since demolished).[4] With the erection of theDiocese of Baltimore in 1789, Catholics in Massachusetts now came under American Catholic jurisdiction
Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Boston on April 8, 1808, taking all ofNew England from the Diocese of Baltimore. The new diocese consisted of the states ofConnecticut, Massachusetts (which included present-dayMaine), New Hampshire,Rhode Island, and Vermont.[5] The pope named Cheverus as the first bishop of Boston.[6]
Cheverus supported the establishment in 1816 of theProvident Institution for Savings in Boston, the first charteredsavings bank in the United States He believed the bank would help his parishioners establish good financial practices.[7] In 1820, Cheverus oversaw the opening of an Ursuline convent in the rectory of Holy Cross Cathedral with a girls school for poor children.[8] He was appointed in 1823 as bishop of Montauban in France.[9]
Due to significant Irish immigration, the Catholic population in the diocese grew to at least 30,000 by 1833.[12] Fenwick traveled throughout the large territory to manage the diocese and administer the sacrament ofconfirmation.[13] This included visitingPenobscot andPassamaquoddy tribes inMaine,[14] who were largely Catholic,[15] and were the subject of intensiveproselytism by Protestant evangelists. Fenwick ordered the construction ofSt. Anne's Church inOld Town, Maine, for them in 1828,[16] and sought to improve their schools.[14]
Fenwick addressed a shortage of priests in his diocese by sending prospectiveseminarians to Maryland and Canada to be educated, and byincardinating several priests from other dioceses.[12] He also trained several students in a makeshift seminary at his episcopal residence.[17] As a result, the number of priests in the diocese had increased to 24 by 1833.[12] At the same time, many newparishes were founded throughout New England.[18]
On August 10, 1834, posters were displayed in Charleston that declared anultimatum: unless the Ursuline Convent and Academy of Mount Benedict were investigated by theboard of selectmen of Charlestown, it would be "demolished" by the "Truckmen of Boston." The following day, authorities were sent to inspect the convent. As they left, a mob of 2,000, wearing masks or painted faces, encircled the convent. They threw bricks through the windows, stole precious objects from the interior, and then lit it ablaze; the nuns fled. The fire department arrived, but did not attempt to extinguish the fire.[19][20]
By the end of Fenwick's episcopate, the number of Catholics in the Diocese of Boston (after the removal of the Diocese of Hartford) had increased to 70,000, in addition to 37 priests, and 44 churches.[21] Fenwick died in 1846.
Dioceses created out of the Diocese and Archdiocese of Boston
Date of diocese
Diocese name
Territory taken from Diocese and Archdiocese of Boston
In the 1920s, Cardinal William O'Connell moved thechancery from offices near Holy Cross Cathedral in the South End to 127 Lake Street in theBrighton neighborhood of Boston.[23] "Lake Street" was ametonym for the bishop and the office of the archdiocese.[23]
In June 2004, the archdiocese sold the archbishop's residence and thechancery and surrounding lands in Brighton toBoston College, in part to defray costs associated with numerous cases of sexual abuse by clergy of the archdiocese.[24] The archdiocesan offices of the archdiocese moved toBraintree. The archdiocesan seminary,Saint John's Seminary, remains on the property in Brighton.[25]
At the beginning of the 21st century the archdiocese was shaken byaccusations of sexual abuse by clergy that culminated in the resignation of its archbishop, CardinalBernard Francis Law, on December 13, 2002. In September 2003, the archdiocese settled over 500 abuse-related claims for $85 million.[26] Victims received an average of $92,000 each. Perpetrators included 140 priests and two others.[27]
Additional sex abuse allegations within the Archdiocese of Boston surfaced in later years. This included alleged abuse at Saint John's Seminary andArlington Catholic High School.[28][29][30]
The Archdiocese of Boston lobbies against the proposed law to remove the statute of limitations onchild sexual abuse lawsuits.[31] From 2011 and 2019 the Catholic church in Massachusetts spent over half a million dollars lobbying against such laws.[32]
The coat of arms of the archdiocese, shown in the information box to the right at the top of this article, has a blue shield with a gold cross and a gold "trimount" over a silver and blue "Barry-wavy" at the base of the shield. The "trimount" of threecoupreaux represents the City of Boston, the original name of which was Trimountaine in reference to the three hills on which the city's original settlement stood. The cross,fleurettée, honors the Cathedral of the Holy Cross while also serving as a reminder that the first bishop of Boston and other early ecclesiastics were natives of France. The "Barry-wavy" is a symbol of the sea, alluding to Boston's role as a major seaport whose first non-indigenous settlers came from across the sea.[33]
The diocesan newspaperThe Pilot has been published in Boston since 1829.
The archdiocese's Catholic Television Center was founded in 1955. From 1964 to 1966, it owned and operated the broadcast television stationWIHS-TV.[citation needed]
As of 2025, the archdiocese had 92 schools with approximately 32,000 students taught by 3,000 faculty members in pre-kindergarten through high school.[38]
In 1993, the archdiocese had 53,569 students in 195 schools.Boston had the largest number of parochial schools: 48 schools with 16,000 students.[39]
Clarke, Richard H. (1872)."Rt. Rev. Benedict Joseph Fenwick, D.D.".Lives of the Deceased Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States. Vol. 1. New York: P. O'Shea. pp. 374–413.OCLC809578529. RetrievedMay 28, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
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