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 religious priests; 14 men’s and 80 women’s religious communities; 4 seminaries and religious scholasticates; 6 colleges; 11 diocesan and parochial high schools; and 93 parochial schools. In 1949 there were 648 conversions.
The Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary.
The first Catholic groups to settle in the Kentucky region toward the end of the eighteenth century, coming from Maryland, were Irish; the first missionary sent there was the Irish Franciscan Fr. Whelan, and the first American priest was the Rev. Thayer. In 1805 the first Trappists arrived in Kentucky; the following year the Dominicans arrived and immediately began 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 parts 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., suffragan to 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 part of its territory from the diocese of L., 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, raising it to the rank and dignity of a metropolitan see.