INDIANAPOLIS, ARCHDIOCESE of. — City and archdiocese in the State of Indiana in the United States of America.
It comprises the counties of Bartholomew, Brown, Clark, Clay, Crawford, Deaborn, Decatur, Fayette, Floyd, Franklin, Hancock, Harrison, Hendricks, Henry, Jackson, Jefferson, Jennings, Johnson, Lawrence, Marion, Monroe, Morgan, Ohio, Orange, Owen, Parke, Perry, Putnam, Ripley, Rush, Scott, Shelby, Switzerland, Union, Vermillion, Vigo, Washington, and Wayne, and the territory of Harrison in Spencer County, in the southern part of the State of Indiana.
It has an area of 8,325 square miles and a population (1940) of 1,287,813 inhabitants, of whom 119,093 are Catholics, distributed among 118 parishes served by 228 diocesan priests and 226 religious; 4 men’s religious communities with 350 professed members and 13 women’s communities with 2,466 professed members. It also has a pro-seminary and College, the Benedictine Abbey of St. Meinrad with major and minor seminaries, West Baden University, a house of studies for the scholastics of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus, with West Baden College attached; in addition, Marian College and St. Mary of the Woods College; 3 diocesan and parish High Schools, and 87 parish schools. In 1949 there were 1,212 conversions.
Pope Gregory XVI created the diocese for the State of Indiana and the eastern part of the State of Illinois on 12 April 1834, with its residence at Vincennes.
The first bishop was Msgr. S. G. Brute of the Congregation of S. Sulpice (1834–39), who had to go to Europe in 1835 to seek the clergy necessary for the diocese. His successor, Msgr. C. de la Hailandière (1839–47), obtained by apostolic brief permission to reside not only at Vincennes but also at Madison, Lafayette, or I.; authorization was granted in part also to the fourth bishop, Msgr. R. de St. Palais. By apostolic brief of 23 March 1898, Pope Leo XIII changed the title of the diocese to that of I., establishing the episcopal see in that city, while retaining as patron s. Francesco Saverio, to whom the cathedral of Vincennes was dedicated.
By the apostolic constitution Ad Christianae plebis of 21 October 1944, Pope Pius XII raised the church of I. to the rank and dignity of a metropolitan church, removing it from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical province of Cincinnati, creating the new province of I., and assigning as suffragans the two new dioceses of Evansville and Lafayette, created by division from I., while the diocese of Fort Wayne was separated and assigned to the province of Cincinnati. The cathedral is dedicated to the ss. apostles Peter and Paul.
DIBL.: H. J. Alerding, History of catholic Church in the diocesis of Vincennes, Indianapolis 1883; T. F. Meehan, s. V. in Cath. Enc., VII, pp. 744–45; AAS, 37 (1945), pp. 101–105; The official catholic directory 1950, New York 1950, pp. 79–83. Enrico Josi