PEORIA, Diocese of. - Diocese and city in the state of Illinois, in the United States of America. This diocese was erected in 1875 by dismemberment from the archdiocese of Chicago and today (1951) covers a territory of 16,933 square miles with a total population of 1,108,951 inhabitants (1940 census), of whom 160,266 are Catholics.
The diocese of P., a suffragan of Chicago, has 1 abbey (St. Bede, Peron), 344 priests of whom 105 are religious of 8 different congregations, 158 parishes, 34 chapels, 58 missions, 13 general hospitals and 2 specialized hospitals or sanatoria. There are furthermore 30 congregations of women and 1,270 religious sisters.
Catholicism in this part of the United States goes back to the time of the Jesuit Father Marquette, who stopped at the native village of P. on 25 May 1673 during a journey of his on the Illinois River. Invited by the natives, he promised to return there the following year. The Recollects celebrated Holy Mass and preached the Gospel at Fort Crevecoeur in 1680. The names of Fathers Gabriel Ribourdi, Zenobius Membre and Louis Hennepin are well known there. Among the first immigrants were many Irish, who came to work on the Illinois-Michigan Canal and who received land in exchange for their wages. They were followed by Poles, Slovenes, Slovaks, Croats, Lithuanians and Italians, who came in great numbers to work in the mines. All were organized into parishes with priests of their own nationality. Msgr. John Lancaster Spalding, a native of Kentucky, was consecrated first bishop of P. on 1 May 1877; he played a decisive part in the founding of the Catholic University of Washington.