Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey in California


The Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey in California is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese in the United States of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in the Central Coast region of California. It comprises Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Cruz counties.
The diocese is led by an ordinary bishop; the bishop's cathedra is located at the Cathedral of San Carlos Borromeo, the mother church of the diocese, in Monterey, California. The diocese serves close to 200,000 Catholics in 46 parishes and 18 schools.

History

The history of the Catholic Church in Monterey began with the establishment on the shores of Monterey Bay of Mission San Carlos Borromeo in 1770 by Saint Junípero Serra, OFM. Father Serra moved the mission to Carmel the next year, which served as the headquarters of the chain of Spanish missions in California.
With the papal bull Apostolicam sollicitudinem of 27 April 1840, Pope Gregory XVI set up a new episcopal see, to which he gave the name of Diocese of California. He assigned to it a vast territory taken from that of the Diocese of Sonora, now the Archdiocese of Hermosillo in Mexico. It included Alta California and the Baja California Territory. He set the episcopal residence at San Diego and made the diocese a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Mexico City.
The first bishop of the diocese was Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, OFM. Mission Santa Barbara served as the pro-cathedral.
In 1848 Alta California was ceded to the United States after the Mexican–American War, and the government of Mexico objected to a United States-based bishop having jurisdiction over parishes in Mexican Baja California. The Holy See divided the diocese into American and Mexican sections and, on 20 November 1849, with the episcopal residence moved to Monterey, a more central position for the new diocese, the American section became the Diocese of Monterey. The Royal Presidio Chapel in Monterey served as the pro-cathedral of the American diocese. In 1853 the diocese was split again, when Pope Pius IX created the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and Monterey was transferred to be a suffragan of the new archdiocese.
In 1859, the diocese's name was changed to the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, due to the growth of the City of Los Angeles. The diocese was split in 1922 to form the Dioceses of Monterey-Fresno and Los Angeles-San Diego. In 1936 the diocese again changed metropolitan bishops, becoming a suffragan of the newly erected Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The latest territorial change for the diocese came in 1967, when it was split again, to form the present dioceses of Monterey and Fresno. The diocese remains as a suffragen diocese of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Bishops

The lists of Bishops and their years of service:

Bishop of the Two Californias

  1. Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno, OFM

    Bishop of Monterey

  2. Joseph Sadoc Alemany, OP, appointed Archbishop of San Francisco
  3. Thaddeus Amat y Brusi, CM

    Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles

  4. Thaddeus Amat y Brusi, CM
  5. Francisco Mora y Borrell, created Archbishop upon retirement in 1896
  6. George Thomas Montgomery, appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of San Francisco
  7. Thomas James Conaty
  8. John Joseph Cantwell, appointed Archbishop of Los Angeles

    Bishop of Monterey-Fresno

  9. John Bernard MacGinley
  10. Philip George Scher
  11. Aloysius Joseph Willinger, CSsR

    Bishop of Monterey in California

  12. Harry Anselm Clinch
  13. Thaddeus Anthony Shubsda
  14. Sylvester Donovan Ryan
  15. Richard John Garcia
  16. Daniel E. Garcia

    Other priests of this diocese who became Bishops

The churches in the Diocese of Monterey include the Cathedral of San Carlos in Monterey and seven former Spanish Missions: Carmel Mission Basillica; Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad; Mission San Antonio de Padua; Mission San Juan Bautista; Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa; Mission San Miguel Arcangel; and Mission Santa Cruz. A complete list of the churches in the diocese is found at List of churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey.

High schools