Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark


The Archdiocese of Newark is an archdiocese of the Catholic Church in northeastern New Jersey, United States. Its ecclesiastic territory includes all of the Catholic parishes and schools in the New Jersey counties of Bergen, Union, Hudson and Essex.

History

Originally established as the Diocese of Newark in 1853 by Pope Pius IX, it was elevated to archdiocese in 1937 by Pope Pius XI.
Newark's Saint Mary's Abbey was instrumental in the 1889 founding of Saint Anselm College, a Catholic, Benedictine college in Goffstown, New Hampshire.
The Archbishop of Newark presides from the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark. He is metropolitan for all the New Jersey dioceses, with the suffragan sees being the Diocese of Camden, the Diocese of Metuchen, the Diocese of Paterson and the Diocese of Trenton.
On September 24, 2013, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Bernard Hebda, Bishop of Gaylord, Michigan, as Coadjutor Archbishop of Newark, positioning him to succeed Archbishop John J. Myers when the latter retired, resigned, or died. However, after Pope Francis appointed Hebda Apostolic Administrator of Saint Paul and Minneapolis in June 2015, concurrent with Coadjutor Archbishop of Newark, he then named Hebda Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis on March 24, 2016, ending any possibility that Hebda would succeed Myers.
In February 2014, the New York Times reported Archbishop Myers planned to retire to a 7,500-foot "palace" expanded at his direction in Pittstown, New Jersey.
Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Myers on November 7, 2016 and named Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, then Archbishop of Indianapolis, to be the Archbishop of Newark. Newark, like Indianapolis, had never before been headed by a cardinal. His installation took place on January 6, 2017.
On 7 May 2020, the Archdiocese of Newark released a statement revealing that ten of its schools- nine elementary and the Cristo Rey Newark High School-would permanently close at the end of academic year due to heavy financial strains. The statement released by the Archdiocese of Newark also noted that the Archdiocese would have to pay approximately $80 million in order to keep all of its remaining elementary schools open for only five more years.

Churches

Bishops

The lists of the bishops and archbishops and their years of service:

Bishops

  1. James Roosevelt Bayley, appointed Archbishop of Baltimore
  2. Michael Corrigan, appointed Coadjutor Archbishop and later Archbishop of New York
  3. Winand Wigger
  4. John J. O'Connor
  5. Thomas J. Walsh ; see below

    Archbishops of Newark

  6. Thomas J. Walsh ; see above
  7. Thomas Aloysius Boland
  8. Peter Leo Gerety
  9. Theodore Edgar McCarrick, appointed Archbishop of Washington
  10. John J. Myers
  11. Cardinal Joseph William Tobin, C.Ss.R.

    Coadjutor archbishops

Seminaries

High schools are listed here:
;Bergen County
;Essex County
;Hudson County
;Union County

Province of Newark

Sexual abuse scandal

In August 2017, the Archdiocese of Newark priest Rev. Kevin Gugilotta received an 11 year prison sentence after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography In March 2019, it was announced that Gugilotta, was named as a plaintiff in a sex abuse lawsuit which claimed that he committed acts of sex abuse while serving the Archdiocese in Union County. At the same time, it was announced that the process of defrocking Gugilotta was underway. By 2020, Gugilotta was permanently removed from ministry.
In July 2018, it was reported that Catholic dioceses in New Jersey paid two former priests a total of $180,000 after they said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had sexually abused them.
A subsequent news report by Catholic News Agency, based on interviews with six unnamed priests of the Archdiocese of Newark, gave more details on McCarrick's actions while Archbishop of Newark. According to this report, when McCarrick would visit the seminary in the Newark diocese, he "would often place his hand on seminarians while talking with them, or on their thighs while seated near them." One of the priests stated that McCarrick "had a type: tall, slim, intelligent - but no smokers." He stated that McCarrick would invite young men to stay at his house on the shore, or to spend the night in the cathedral rectory in central Newark. In response to the story, the Archdiocese of Newark stated that neither the six anonymous priests interviewed for the story, nor anyone else, "has ever spoken to Cardinal Tobin about a 'gay sub-culture' in the Archdiocese of Newark."
The news story also stated that in 2014, a priest was removed from his job as rector of St. Andrew's Hall, the archdiocesan college seminary, after it was alleged that he had hidden a camera in a young priest's bedroom. In response to the story, the Archdiocese of Newark stated that this priest had been "going through a personal crisis and received therapy after the incident at the seminary. Although he is not serving as a pastor, he has been deemed fit for priestly ministry and hopes to serve as a hospital chaplain."
On 17 August 2018 the Catholic News Agency reported that six Newark priests alleged experience of sexual misconduct by two priests in seminary and ministry in the archdiocese. Archbishop Tobin responded with a letter to the priests of Newark on the same day, saying that he had been unaware of the issue. He concluded the letter by encouraging priests to refer media inquiries to the archdiocesan director of communications, rather than speak to journalists. This drew criticism, following the many cases of Church cover-ups rather than transparency, such as "The Catholic church's habit of secrecy and denial continues".
On September 26, 2018, it was announced that Archdiocese of Newark was now one of four American Dioceses facing an investigation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. McCarrick served in each Diocese under investigation. On February 13, 2019, all of the Catholic Dioceses based in New Jersey released the names of clergy who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children since 1940. Of the 188 listed, 63 were based in the Archdiocese of Newark. Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin also acknowledged that the alleged acts of abuse committed by the clergy listed were reported to law enforcement agencies. One of the priests also served in not only the Archdiocese of Newark, but also in the Diocese of Paterson. By 2020, the names of 86 accused clergy who served in Archdiocese of Newark were made public. Some of those listed were already convicted.
In December 2019, a new law went into effect throughout the state of New Jersey which resulted in some of McCarrick's victims filing lawsuits against the former Cardinal and Archdiocese of Newark. As of December 9, 2019, a total of eight lawsuits were filed against the Archdiocese, with one also being the first filed against the Vatican.
On December 27, 2019, the Washington Post revealed that McCarrick gave $600,000 to high-ranking church officials, including two popes, multiple priests, cardinals and archbishops, when he was Archbishop of Washington between 2001 and 2006 amid a sexual abuse probe. The Post article stated that "Several of the more than 100 recipients were directly involved in assessing misconduct claims against McCarrick, documents and interviews show." However, some of these recipients, including both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, had little oversight over these transactions. Robert Hoatson, a Archdiocese of Newark cleric who was involved in the transactions, described these payments as "hush money."
By February 9, 2020, the five Catholic dioceses in the state of New Jersey, including the Archdiocese of Newark, had paid a total of over $11 million to compensate 105 claims of sex abuse committed by Catholic clergy. Of these 105 claims, 98 were compensated through settlements. The payments also do not involve 459 other sex abuse cases in these dioceses which are still not resolved. The same month, it was reported that not only the Archdiocese of Newark, but of Diocese of Meutchen and Diocese of Trenton were secretly paying McCarrick's victims since 2005.
On July 13, 2020, it was revealed that nine new sex abuse lawsuits were filed against the Archdiocese of Newark. The new lawsuits allege abuse by four archdiocese priests and three members of religious orders, including one cleric who had not been publicly accused of abuse before the lawsuit was made public. On July 23, 2020, it was revealed that a new lawsuit which had been filed against the Archdiocese of Newark, Diocese of Metuchen and Catholic schools an alleged victim attended claimed that a beach house which McCarrick owned served as common places priests and others under the control of McCarrick engaged in “open and obvious criminal sexual conduct” that was kept cloaked by the church. Though it did claim whether or not McCarrick asked the other priests to bring boys to the beach house, the lawsuit did also that allege that some of his priests served as “procurers” who agreed to bring victims to McCarrick as well. Though McCarrick was serving as Bishop of Metuchen at time of the alleged abuse, the alleged victim was also attending Catholic schools which belonged to the Archdiocese of Newark as well. The alleged victim maintained that McCarrick abused him with the assistance of other priests beginning in 1982 when he was 14. The lawsuit stated that boys were assigned different rooms in the house and paired with adult clergymen.