Harrisburg, Diocese of. — City and diocese of 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 Philadelphia. 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 square 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 religious priests, 1 seminary, 7 male religious communities and 16 female religious communities; 10 diocesan and parochial high schools; in 1946 there were 530 conversions.
The first bishop of Harrisburg was Mgr. J. F. Shanahan, consecrated on 12 July 1868 and died on 24 September 1886. The diocese is a suffragan of Philadelphia. The patrons of the diocese are the Blessed Virgin Mary, Assumed into Heaven, and St. Patrick.