PENNE and PESCARA, DIOCESE OF. – A diocese with its see at Pescara, it has 235,000 inhabitants, 70 parishes grouped into 14 deaneries. It also has 290 other churches and oratories. The territory, predominantly hilly, covers 2,000 sq. km. and includes 39 communes, of which 30 belong to the province of Pescara and 9 to that of Teramo. The Chapter, established at Penne in the year 1000, is composed of 12 canons (Ann. Pont., 1952, pp. 314-15). The diocese is directly dependent on the Holy See.
Legend attributes the evangelization of the present diocesan territory, once largely inhabited by the Vestini, to Patras, one of the seventy-two disciples of Jesus Christ, who is said to have been the first bishop of Penne. It is also recounted that during the persecution of Diocletian, the following suffered martyrdom in the territory of Casauria: Massimo the deacon, Venanzio, Luciano, and Donato, whose relics were transferred to the cathedral of Penne in 868 by a bishop named Giraldo; but these were probably martyrs from other places (Lanzoni, I, p. 371). The diocese appears during the 9th century, but its origins may be much earlier. In 958 Penne extended its jurisdiction over the territory of the very ancient city of Atri, which possesses a monumental church of great historical importance. In 1252 Atri was erected into a diocese but united to Penne «aequo principaliter».
During the first centuries of the second Christian millennium, the diocese of Penne-Atri enjoyed great splendor and considerable influence over a vast, prosperous area of Abruzzo. It was visited by St. Francis of Assisi, who went to Penne to settle serious disputes that had arisen among certain noble families. The Franciscan convent in that city dates from 1225.
On 2 July 1949 Pius XII transferred the see of the bishop and the Chapter to Pescara and separated Atri from Penne, uniting it with the diocese of Teramo. The first bishop of the reorganized diocese (under the name of Penne-Pescara), Msgr. Benedetto Falcucci, from Atessa, took canonical possession on 30 October 1949.
The church of S. Bartolomeo di Carpineto is cared for by the State as a national monument. Founded for the Benedictines in 962 by the Count of Penne, it was entrusted to the Cistercians by Galvano Lancia in 1258 and was a very wealthy monastery. Other Benedictine abbeys were: S. Maria di Picciano, which received confirmation of its possessions from Leo IX and was granted to the Olivetans by Alexander VI; Loreto Aprutino, existing in the 12th century; S. Salvatore di Castelli; while S. Giovanni di Casanello in the territory of Atri, subject to the abbey of SS. Quirico e Giulitta at Antrodoco, belonged after 1252 to the cathedral of S. Maria of Atri.