HARRISBURG, DIOCESI di. - City and diocese in the State of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The diocese was created on 3 March 1868 by Pope Pius IX, through the division of the diocese of Filadelfia. It comprises the counties of Dauphin, Lebanon, Lancaster, York, Adams, Franklin, Cumberland, Perry, Juniata, Mifflin, Snyder, Northumberland, Union, Montour, and Columbia, all in the State of Pennsylvania.
The diocese has an area of 7,565 miles, with a population of 1,139,996 inhabitants, of whom 110,673 are Catholics (1949). It has 84 parishes, 8 chapels, 16 missions, 17 stations, 126 diocesan priests and 61 regulars, 1 seminary, 7 male and 16 female religious communities; 10 diocesan and parochial «high schools»; in 1946 there were 530 conversions.
The first bishop of H. was Msgr J. F. Shanahan, consecrated on 12 July 1868 and died on 24 Sept. 1886. The diocese is suffragan to Filadelfia. The patrons of the diocese are the Blessed Virgin Mary Assumed into Heaven and St Patrick.