Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York


The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York is a Latin Catholic archdiocese in New York State. It encompasses the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City and the counties of Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester. The Archdiocese of New York is the second-largest diocese in the United States by population, encompassing 296 parishes that serve around 2.8 million Catholics, in addition to hundreds of Catholic schools, hospitals and charities. The Archdiocese also operates the well-known St. Joseph's Seminary, commonly referred to as Dunwoodie. The Archdiocese of New York is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province of New York which includes the suffragan dioceses of Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Ogdensburg, Rochester, Rockville Centre and Syracuse.
The Latin name of the archdiocese is Archidioecesis Neo-Eboracensis, and the corporate name is Archdiocese of New York.
It publishes a bi-weekly newspaper, Catholic New York, the largest of its kind in the United States.

Prelature

The ordinary of the Archdiocese of New York is an archbishop whose cathedra is The Cathedral of St. Patrick in Manhattan, New York. The Archbishop of New York is also the metropolitan of the larger :Category:Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Province of New York|Ecclesiastical Province of New York, which consists of the eight dioceses that comprise the State of New York with the exception of a small portion that belongs to the :Category:Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Province of Hartford|Province of Hartford. As such, the metropolitan archbishop possesses certain limited authority over the suffragan sees of the province.
R. Luke Concanen became the first Bishop of the Diocese of New York in 1808. The current Archbishop of New York is Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan.

History

Initially, the territory that now makes up the Archdiocese of New York was part of the Prefecture Apostolic of United States of America which was established on November 26, 1784. On November 6, 1789, the Prefecture was elevated to a diocese and the present territory of the Archdiocese of New York fell under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Baltimore, headed by the first American bishop, John Carroll.
At the time, there was a dearth of priests to minister to the large territory. The first Roman Catholic Church in New York City was St. Peter's on Barclay Street. The land was purchased from Trinity Church with community donations and a gift of 1,000 pieces of silver from King Charles III of Spain. The church was built in the federal style. Among its regular worshippers were Saint Elizabeth Seton and Venerable Pierre Toussaint.
On April 8, 1808, the Holy See raised Baltimore to the status of an Archdiocese. At the same time, the dioceses of Philadelphia, Boston, Bardstown and New York were created as suffragan dioceses of Baltimore. At the time of its establishment, the Diocese of New York covered all of the State of New York, as well as the northeastern New Jersey counties of Sussex, Bergen, Morris, Essex, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth.
Since the first appointed bishop could not set sail from Italy due to the Napoleonic blockade, a Jesuit priest, Anthony Kohlmann, was appointed administrator. He was instrumental in organizing the diocese and preparing for its original Cathedral of St. Patrick to be built on Mulberry Street. Among the difficulties faced by Catholics at the time was anti-Catholic bigotry in general and in the New York school system. A strong Nativist movement sought to keep Catholics out of the country and to prevent those already present from advancing.
On April 23, 1847, territory was taken from the diocese to form the dioceses of Albany and Buffalo. The New York diocese was elevated to an archdiocese on July 19, 1850. On July 29, 1853, territory was again taken from the diocese, this time to form the Diocese of Newark and the Diocese of Brooklyn.
The Bahamas were made a part of the Archdiocese of New York on July 25, 1885, establishing their first permanent Catholic presence, due to their proximity to New York's busy port. Churches and schools were constructed and administered until The Bahamas' eventual dissociation to form the Prefecture Apostolic of Bahama on March 21, 1929. By 1932, The Bahamas were no longer under the spiritual jurisdiction of New York.

Archdiocesan demographics

As of 2016, the Catholic population of the Archdiocese was 2,642,740. These Catholics were served by 696 archdiocesan priests and 590 priests of religious orders. Also laboring in the diocese were 319 permanent deacons, 962 religious brothers, and 2,260 nuns.
For comparison, in 1929, the Catholic population of the Archdiocese was 1,273,291 persons. There were 1,314 clergy ministering in the archdiocese and 444 churches. There were also 170,348 children in Catholic educational and welfare institutions.
In 1959, there were 7,913 nuns and sisters ministering in the Archdiocese, representing 103 different religious orders.

Anniversaries of significance to the archdiocese

Below is a list of individuals who have led the Archdiocese of New York and its antecedent jurisdictions since its founding.

Ordinaries

Bishops of New York

  1. R. Luke Concanen
  2. John Connolly
  3. John Dubois
  4. John Hughes, became Archbishop of New York

    Archbishops of New York

  5. John Hughes, was Bishop of New York
  6. John McCloskey
  7. Michael Corrigan
  8. John Farley
  9. Patrick Hayes
  10. Francis Spellman
  11. Terence Cooke
  12. John O'Connor
  13. Edward Egan
  14. Timothy Dolan

    Coadjutor archbishops of New York

Under the Code of Canon Law, the coadjutor bishop has the right of succession upon the death, retirement or resignation of the diocesan bishop he is assisting. All coadjutor ordinaries except for James Francis McIntyre and John Joseph Maguire eventually succeeded to become head of the Archdiocese of New York or its antecedent jurisdictions.
Unlike coadjutors, auxiliary bishops do not have the right of succession, per canon 975, §1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Four auxiliaries went on to become Archbishop of New York.

Schools

Religious orders

Cemeteries

The following cemeteries are under the auspices of Calvary & Allied Cemeteries, Inc.:
Many parishes have their own cemeteries, or their own sections in private cemeteries. An incomplete list of those cemeteries follows:

Saints, blesseds, venerables, servants of God

In August 2018, the archdiocese reported that between 2016 and 2018, its Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program paid nearly $60 million to 278 victims of sex abuse by clergy. On September 26, 2018, it was reported that the Archdiocese of New York, and the three other dioceses where Theodore McCarrick served as a bishop, were facing an investigation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for McCarrick's alleged sex abuse. On January 28, 2019, the New York state Assembly and Senate passed a law allowing prosecutors to bring criminal charges until a victim turned 28, and permitting victims to sue until age 55. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law on February 14, 2019.
On April 26, 2019, the Archdiocese released a list of 120 Catholic clergy accused of committing acts of sexual abuse. Some of those on the list, which includes both male and female church workers, have been convicted and many are deceased. The list was accompanied by a letter of apology from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who asked for forgiveness.
On August 14, 2019, James Grien, who has accused McCarrick of sexually abusing him when McCarrick was an Auxiliary Bishop of New York, filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New York for shielding McCarrick from a potential criminal investigation. In his lawsuit, Grien also stated that McCarrick's status as a friend of his family allowed the former New York Auxiliary Bishop to continue to visit and sexually abuse him after being transferred to New Jersey's Diocese of Metuchen and Archdiocese of Newark.
On September 30, 2019, Dolan released a report written by Barbara S. Jones, a former judge and prosecutor. Her report stated, among other things, that the Archdiocese had completed the process of removing all of its remaining accused clergy from active ministry. In the same report, Jones recommended that the Archdiocese should also hire a sex abuse "czar" to vet all complaints. Jones, who was commissioned by Dolan in 2018 to conduct the review of the church's handling of abuse allegations, also recommended hiring "a compliance officer for the Office of Priest Personnel to monitor its functions and oversee the new document management system". Dolan also backed the Jones Report and stated at a press conference that the Archdiocese was expanding its sex abuse policy as well.
On October 10, 2019, it was announced that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Bronx-based Auxiliary Bishop John Jenik following an accusation of sex abuse. Appointed Auxiliary Bishop by Pope Francis in 2014, Jenik also served as vicar for the Northwest Bronx, appointed by Dolan's predecessor Edward Egan in 2006. Jenik, who submitted his resignation letter upon turning 75 in March 2019, had stepped out of public ministry in October 2018 after the allegation surfaced.
On May 8, 2020, Cuomo extended the 2019 New York Child Victim Act's statewide statute of limitations deadline to file sex abuse lawsuits, which was originally set for August 14, 2020, to January 14, 2021.
On July 27, 2020, it was revealed that a Catholic priest who served the Archdiocese of New York in upstate New York's Orange Coutny was named in a new sex abuse lawsuit. In the lawsuit, eight men alleged that longtime Orange County priest Rev. George Boxelaar, who is now deceased, sexually abused them when they were children, adding their claims to those of at least three other accusers of the late Boxelaar who have sued. These three other accusers had filed lawsuits through the state Supreme Court in Orange County in late 2019, with one also naming the Archdiocese of New York and both Holy Cross and Our Lady of Mount Carmel churches as defendants. In addition to these new lawsuits, a Scarsdale Catholic school teacher identified as Edwin Gaylor also confessed to committing acts of sex abuse.

Province of New York