Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River


The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the New England region of the United States. It is led by the prelature of a bishop administering the diocese from the mother church St. Mary's Cathedral in Fall River, Massachusetts.
The diocese was canonically erected by Pope Pius X on March 12, 1904, taking its territories from the Diocese of Providence in Rhode Island. It comprises the counties of Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes, and Nantucket, as well as three towns in Plymouth County.

Diocesan statistics

Religious include the bishop, 147 priests currently serving in parishes, 90 permanent deacons, 16 religious brothers and 295 religious sisters. There are 96 parishes, 11 missions, a health care center, and 5 nursing homes.
The total Catholic population of the area as of 2013 is approximately 313,115.

Education

The diocese maintains one college, Stonehill, five high schools —, two middle schools and fifteen elementary schools.

Superintendents

The current Superintendent of Schools is Stephen Perla.
The following is a list of superintendents:
The following is a list of bishops and their terms of service:
  1. William Stang
  2. Daniel Francis Feehan
  3. James Edwin Cassidy
  4. James Louis Connolly
  5. Daniel Anthony Cronin, appointed Archbishop of Hartford
  6. Seán Patrick O'Malley, O.F.M. Cap., appointed Bishop of Palm Beach and later Archbishop of Boston
  7. George William Coleman
  8. Edgar Moreira da Cunha, S.D.V.

    Coadjutor bishops

Father William Stang was appointed the first bishop of Fall River March 12, 1904, the day the diocese was erected. He died in office. Bishop Stang High School was named in his memory.
On July 2, 1907, Father Daniel Feehan was appointed Bishop of Fall River. Ordained a bishop on September 19, 1907, by Bishop Thomas Daniel Beaven, he served until incapacitation and died on July 19, 1934, in office. Bishop Feehan High School was named in his honor.
Feehan was succeeded by James E. Cassidy, his Coadjutor Bishop and Vicar General for many years. In 1945 Bishop Cassidy received the assistance of a Coadjutor Bishop, the Most Reverend James L. Connolly, who would later succeed him. Bishop Cassidy High School, now known as Coyle and Cassidy High School, was named in his honor.
Bishop James Louis Connolly was born in Fall River in 1894 and graduated from B. M. C. Durfee High School in 1913.
In 1945, he was named Coadjutor Bishop of Fall River.
Following the death of Cassidy, Connolly became Bishop of Fall River in May 1951. One key to his tenure as Bishop was a special concern with providing secondary education in the four urban areas of the Diocese. As a result, four Catholic high schools were constructed under his guidance. Bishop Connolly High School was dedicated in his name in 1967. He also founded the diocesan newspaper, The Anchor. Connolly attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council. He served as Bishop of Fall River until 1970 when he retired.
In the early 1990s, revelations surfaced about how the Diocese of Fall River protected former priest James Porter from being potential sex abuse charges in between 1960 and 1964. After being transferred to St. Mary's parochial grammar school in 1960, where he was charged with managing the school's altar boys, Porter gained a reputation there as a child molester, However, no action was taken against him by the Catholic Church until 1963, by which time at least four parents had complained to his superiors about his inappropriate behavior. Rather than contact the police, however, Church officials moved Porter to a parish in Fall River, where further complaints about his behavior surfaced. Despite being arrested as early as 1964 for sex abuse, all of his sex abuse charges only resulted in hospitalizations until he was jailed in Minnesota in 1992, which also happened many years after he left the priesthood to get married and start a family In the early 1960s, Porter abused more than 60 North Attleboro children, and nearly 100 in southeastern Massachusetts. In Massachusetts in 1993, Porter's lawyer struck a plea bargain, and Porter was sentenced to 18–20 years in prison, with the possibility of parole, with counseling, after six years. Parole was consistently denied for several years. He completed his prison sentence in 2004, but was held until his death pending a civil commitment hearing. In December 1993, then-Diocese of Fall River Bishop Sean O'Malley acknowledged the Diocese's protection of Porter and apologized.
Daniel Anthony Cronin became the fifth Bishop in December 1970 upon the retirement of Bishop Connolly. Cronin continued the work of implementing the decrees of the Second Vatican Council and supported liturgical renewal, continuing education of the clergy and the restoration of the permanent diaconate. He devoted himself to the pastoral care of the sick in hospitals, to the expansion of Catholic Counseling and Social Services, to the Family Life Ministry and other various activities. Late in 1991 Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop Cronin Archbishop of Hartford.
On July 3, 2014, Bishop Edgar Moreira da Cunha, S.D.V., was announced as the eighth bishop of the Diocese of Fall River, and installed September 24. Edgar M. da Cunha was born in Nova Fatima, then part of the municipality of Riachão do Jacuípe, Brazil. He studied at the Universidade Catolica Fatima dos Salvados and was ordained a priest on March 27, 1982 by Bishop Joseph A. Francis, S.V.D. He was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark as well as titular bishop of Ucres on June 27, 2003 by John Paul II. da Cunha was consecrated an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Newark on September 3, 2003 as the only Brazilian-born bishop in the United States.

Landmarks

In addition to St. Mary's Cathedral, two other major churches in the diocese are St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, Santo Christo Church and Shrine, and St. Anne's both in Fall River.

Suppressed parishes

Province of Boston