OMAHA, ARCHDIOCESE of. - City and archdiocese in the State of Nebraska, U.S.A.
O. covers an area of 14,051 sq. miles, with
a population (1950) of 543,656 inhabitants and 126,221 Catholics. There are 202 diocesan priests and 116 religious belonging to 6 different congregations. There are also 162 parishes, 16 chapels, 1 seminary, 3 colleges, and a university (Creighton University, administered by the Jesuits), 7 hospitals, and 1 orphanage.
The first Jesuit missionaries came to the diocese around 1838 to work among the indigenous peoples. In 1851 the territory was separated from S. Luigi and erected into the apostolic vicariate of the Rocky Mountains, and Rev. Giovanni B. Miège was appointed its first apostolic vicar. On 6 Jan. 1857, the vicariate was divided for a second time and took the name of apostolic vicariate of Nebraska, comprising the present State of Nebraska, the two Dakotas west of the Missouri River, Wyoming, and Montana west of the Rockies. The first apostolic vicar, Msgr. James Miles O'Gorman, found there, in 1859, 300 white families and several thousand indigenous people. On 2 Oct. 1885 the vicariate was elevated to a diocese. By the apostolic constitution of Pio XII, Universi dominici gregis, of 7 Apr. 1945, the diocese of O. was elevated to an archdiocese. The diocese of O. was separated from Dubuque. The dioceses of Lincoln and Grand Island, likewise separated from Dubuque, form the ecclesiastical province.