Roman Catholic Diocese of Stockholm


The Diocese of Stockholm is an exempt Latin Catholic ecclesiastical bishopric in Sweden and the only Roman Catholic diocese established in Sweden since the Protestant Reformation.
Its cathedral episcopal see is Saint Erik's Cathedral, in Sweden's capital city, Stockholm. The former Catholic cathedrals in Linköping, Lund, Skara, Strängnäs, Uppsala, Västerås and Växjö have all been turned into Lutheran churches, like the World Heritage Site Nederluleå kyrka in Gammelstaden.
The diocese of Stockholm, which belongs to no ecclesiastical province but forms an episcopal conference with its Nordic neighbours, includes 44 parishes and covers the entire country of Sweden.

History

Antecedents

Between 1521 and 1550 the episcopates of the last Roman Catholic bishops in Sweden and Finland ended. Thereafter Lutheranism prevailed in Sweden-Finland as well as in Danish Scania, which later became part of Sweden.
In 1582 the stray Catholics in Sweden and elsewhere in Northern Europe were placed under the jurisdiction of a papal nuncio in Cologne. The Congregation de propaganda fide, on its establishment in 1622, took charge of the vast missionary field, which – at its third session – it divided among the nuncio of Brussels, the nuncio at Cologne and the nuncio to Poland.
In 1688 Sweden became part of the Apostolic Vicariate of the Nordic Missions. The German Paderborn bishops functioned as administrators of the apostolic vicariate.

See of Stockholm

In 2019, it pastorally served 122,000 Catholics, but estimated to be more than 150,000 Catholics consisting of hundreds of nationalities on 450,000 km² with 44 parishes and 13 missions with 159 priests, 31 deacons, 269 lay religious and 9 seminarians.

Episcopal ordinaries

Apostolic Vicars of Sweden

  1. Nicolaus Oster
  2. Rafael d'Ossery
  3. Paolo Moretti
  4. Jean Baptiste Gridaine
  5. Jacob Laurentius Studach
  6. Johan Georg Huber
  7. Albert Bitter
  8. Johannes Erik Müller, O.S.B.

    Bishops of Stockholm

  9. Johannes Erik Müller, O.S.B.
  10. Knut Ansgar Nelson, O.S.B.
  11. John E. Taylor, O.M.I.
  12. Hubertus Brandenburg
  13. Cardinal Anders Arborelius

    Auxiliary Bishops

  14. William Kenney, C.P., appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham