Louisville, Archdiocese of

LOUISVILLE, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - Archdiocese and city in the State of Kentucky in the United States of America.

It comprises that part of Kentucky situated west of the counties of Carroll, Owen, Roch Castle, Laurel and Whitley and east of Breckenridge, the counties of Grayson, Edmonson, Varren and Allen, with an area of 10,630 sq. km., 905,078 inhabitants, of whom 132,050 are Catholics. It has 110 parishes, 56 chapels, 3 missions and 4 stations; 158 diocesan priests and 134 regulars, 14 male and 80 female religious communities, 4 seminaries and religious scholasticates, 6 colleges, 11 diocesan and parochial High Schools, 93 parochial schools; in 1949 there were 648 conversions.

The Cathedral is dedicated to Mary Assumed.

The first Catholic groups to move into the region of Kentucky toward the end of the 18th century, coming from Maryland, were Irish; the first missionary sent there was the Irish Franciscan Father Whelan; and the first American priest was the Rev. Thayer. In 1805 the first Trappists arrived in Kentucky, and the following year the Dominicans, who immediately began the construction of a church.

Pope Pius IX, by his apostolic constitution Ex debito of 8 April 1808, erected the episcopal see of Bardstown, and the first bishop was Msgr. B. J. Flaget, with jurisdiction over the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and part of Arkansas, Wisconsin and Iowa. The first diocesan Synod took place there on 20 February 1812. On 10 December 1837 Pope Gregory XVI created the diocese of L. as a suffragan of Cincinnati, with its see in the city of L., founded on 1 May 1780. Pope Pius XI, by the apostolic constitution Universis catholici orbis of 9 December 1937, detached from the diocese of L. a part of its territory, creating the new diocese of Owensboro; then by the apostolic constitution Quo christifidelium regimen of the following day he separated the diocese of L. from the jurisdiction of the archdiocese of Cincinnati, erecting it to the rank and dignity of a metropolitan see.

Enrico Josi