Charleston, Diocese of

CHARLESTON, Diocese of. - City of the State of South Carolina, in the United States, seat of a diocese, suffragan of Baltimore-Washington, it comprises the entire territory of South Carolina with an area of more than 85,000 sq km.

Out of a population of more than 1,899,804 inhabitants (1940) there were 14,200 Catholics (1947) under the direction of 91 diocesan priests and 39 religious, 68 churches and chapels, 1 seminary, 4 High Schools with 680 pupils, an academy for girls, 12 parochial schools with 1903 children, some of which, with their adjoining churches, were founded exclusively for negroes, beginning in the last century. In 1946 there were 339 conversions.

The first Mass in C. was said in 1786 by an Italian priest, before a Catholic colony of only 12 members. When this had grown, in 1789 an abandoned Methodist temple was purchased, to make of it the Catholic church of St. Mary, which obtained legal existence in 1791. Thus came about the erection of the diocese on 12 July 1820, and the first bishop was the celebrated John England (d. 1842).

Catholic Hierarchy of the United States 1790-1922, Washington 1922, see index; D. C. Shearer, Pontificia americana... 1784-1884, ibid. 1933, see index; P. Guilday, Life and Time of John England First Bishop of C., 2 vols., New York 1937; The Official Catholic Directory 1947, part 2, ibid. 1947, pp. 381-83.

Corrado Morin