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, Dearborn, 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, Vermilion, Vigo, Washington and Wayne, and the Harrison territory in Spencer County, in the southern part of the State of Indiana.
It has an area of 8,325 square miles with a population (1940) of 1,287,813 inhabitants, of whom 119,095 are Catholics, distributed in 118 parishes, served by 228 diocesan priests and 226 religious, 4 male religious communities with 350 professed members and 13 female communities with 2,466 professed members; it also has a pro-seminary and college, the Benedictine abbey of St. Meinrad with major and minor seminary, West Baden University, a study house for the scholastics of the Chicago province of the Society of Jesus, with the annexed West Baden College; also Marian College and St. Mary of the Woods College; 3 diocesan and parochial high schools, and 87 parochial schools; in 1949 there were 1,212 conversions.
Pope Gregory XVI established the diocese for the State of Indiana and the eastern part of the State of Illinois on 12 April 1834 with residence at Vincennes.
The first bishop was Mgr. S. G. Brute of the Congregation of St. Sulpice (1834-39), who in 1835 had to go to Europe to seek the clergy necessary for the diocese. His successor, Mgr. C. de la Hailandière (1839-47), obtained by apostolic brief the authorization to reside not only at Vincennes but also at Madison, Lafayette or Indianapolis; this authorization was partly granted also to the fourth bishop, Mgr. R. de St. Palais. By apostolic brief of 23 March 1898 Pope Leo XIII changed the title of the diocese to that of Indianapolis, fixing the episcopal see in that city, while St. Francis Xavier, to whom the cathedral of Vincennes had been dedicated, remained its patron.
Pope Pius XII, by the apostolic constitution Ad Christianae plebis of 21 October 1944, raised the church of Indianapolis to the rank and dignity of metropolitan, removing it from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical province of Cincinnati, creating the new province of Indianapolis and assigning as suffragans the two new dioceses of Evansville and Lafayette, created by division from Indianapolis, and the diocese of Fort Wayne, separated from the province of Cincinnati. The cathedral is dedicated to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul.