1500 to 1850

In the mid-1500s, present day Florida became a Spanish colony. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565 established the Nombre de Dios Mission in St. Augustine. His company included four priests, who were tasked to evangelize the Native American tribes. These priests celebrated the first mass in what would become the United States.

The Diocese of Santiago de Cuba established the first parish in the future United States in St. Augustine, appointing Martin Francisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales as its first priest. Pending the arrival of regular missionaries, Menéndez appointed several soldiers to provide religious instruction to the Native Americans.

After the signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris to end the Seven Years War, the British took control of the Spanish colonies in Florida, prompting many Catholic settlers to leave.^[1] In 1783, after the end of the American Revolution, the British returned all of Florida to Spain and Catholic settlers began returning to the area.

In 1793, Pope Pius VI established the Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas with jurisdiction over all of Spanish Florida.

In 1821, Spain ceded all of Florida to the United States. Four years later, the Vatican created the new Vicariate Apostolic of Alabama and Florida and named Michael Portier as the apostolic vicar.^[2]

1850 to 1870

While in Europe, Vérot also secured funding to repair churches in St. Augustine and elsewhere in Florida. Florida. He also built new churches in Tampa, Fernandina Beach and Tallahassee.^[3] Three Christian Brothers from Canada opened a boys' school in St. Augustine.^[3]

During the American Civil War, Vérot condemned the looting of the Catholic church at Amelia Island, Florida, by Union Army troops. He personally evacuated several Sisters of Mercy from Jacksonville to Savannah through the battle zone in Georgia.^[4] After the war, Vérot published a pastoral letter urging Catholics in the diocese to "put away all prejudice ... against their former servants". In 1866, the Sisters of St. Joseph were introduced from France, and despite the most adverse conditions, they had several flourishing schools and academies in operation before many years.

1870 to 1900

On March 11, 1870, Pius IX elevated the Vicariate of Florida into the Diocese of St. Augustine and named Vérot as its first bishop.^[5] The new diocese covered all of Florida except for the Florida Panhandle region. Vérot died in 1876. In 1877, Pius IX named Reverend John Moore of Charleston as the second bishop of St. Augustine.

A contingent of Benedictine monks arrived in San Antonio, Florida, in 1886 initially to serve German immigrants. In 1887, a yellow fever outbreak in Florida killed several priests in the diocese. That same year, a fire destroyed the Cathedral of St. Augustine. At Moore's request, a group of Jesuit fathers arrived in Tampa, Florida, in 1888 to replace the priests lost to illness.^[6] In August 1888, the St. Mary's Home for Orphan Girls was opened in Jacksonville, Florida. That same year, yellow fever broke out again in Jacksonville. With the local priest William J. Kenny sidelined by the disease, Moore rushed there to run the parish and tend to the sick.^[6]

Catholic Heritage of Florida Plaque in Cathedral-Basilica

In 1889, Moore asked the Benedictines to establish several mission churches on the Florida Gulf Coast from Pasco County northward. He requested that the Jesuits cover Hillsborough County southward to Key West.^[6] Moore died in 1901.

1900 to 1920

In 1902, Monsignor William Kenny was appointed as the third bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine by Pope Leo XIII. During his tenure as bishop, Kenny increased the recruitment of Irish priests and nuns, reorganized diocesan offices, expanded missionary efforts to Florida's interior and smaller towns, and more than doubled diocesan fundraising.^[7] He also established the first Catholic parish for African Americans in the state.^[7] In 1913, the Florida Legislature had passed legislation prohibiting white women from teaching African-American children, a measure aimed at non-segregated Catholic schools. Considering the law unconstitutional, Kenny told his teaching nuns to ignore it. Kenny died in 1913.

The next bishop of St. Augustine was Reverend Michael Curley, named by Pope Pius X in 1914. In 1916, Florida Governor Park Trammell ordered the arrest of three Sisters of St. Joseph for violating the law on teaching African-American children. Curley vigorously attacked their arrests as part of a campaign against Catholic schools, gaining strong support from other Catholic prelates in the United States.^[8][9]

Curley attracted national attention in 1917 by successfully battling a bill in the Florida Legislature that would have mandated inspections of convents.^[10][11][12] Curley refused to comply with it.^[9] He led a successful legal campaign to have the law declared unconstitutional.^[12] He also sought to educate Floridians about Catholicism and demonstrate the bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan.^[9] By the end of his tenure, the Catholic population of the diocese had grown from 39,000 to 41,000, with 40 new churches built.^[12] In 1921, Pope Benedict XV named Curley as the new archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

1920 to 2000

In 1922, Monsignor Patrick Barry was appointed the fifth bishop of St. Augustine by Pope Pius XI.^[13] In 1931, Barry instituted an annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Nuestra Señora de la Leche at the Mission Nombre de Dios in order to draw attention to the heritage of the Catholic Church in St. Augustine. In 1940, Barry founded Barry University in Miami Shores along with his family members.^[14] Barry died in 1940 after 18 years in office.

Pius XII named Monsignor Joseph Hurley of the Diocese of Cleveland as the next bishop of St. Augustine. In 1958, Pius XII erected the Diocese of Miami, taking its territory in South Florida from the Diocese of Augustine.^[15] Hurley was a staunch opponent of the American Civil Rights actions during the 1960s, even avoiding Martin Luther King Jr. at the airport when their paths crossed unexpectedly. King would eventually write Hurley a letter requesting his support for the movement, but failed to gain it.^[16] Hurley died in 1967.

Bishop Paul Tanner, general secretary of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, was the next bishop of St. Augustine, selected by Pope Paul VI in 1968. That same year, the pope erected the Dioceses of Orlando and St. Petersburg, both taking territory from the Diocese of St. Augustine.^[15] In 1975, Paul VI erected the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, taking more territory from St. Augustine.^[15] Tanner retired in 1979. His replacement was Auxiliary Bishop John J. Snyder from the Diocese of Brooklyn, named by Pope John Paul II that same year. Snyder entered retirement in 2000.

2000 to present

In 2001, John Paul II appointed Monsignor Victor Galeone of the Archdiocese of Baltimore as bishop of St. Augustine. Galeone retired in 2011 and Pope Benedict XVI replaced him with Auxiliary Bishop Felipe de Jesús Estévez of Miami.

Estévez initiated the first ecumenical vespers at the bishop-level in Florida in 2014 at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. The service was attended by Protestant and Orthodox leaders, clergy and lay people. He attended the installation of Bishop Robert Schaefer of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America near Tampa, Florida. He collaborated with local Eastern Orthodox Christian leaders in support of the meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew in Jerusalem in 2014. In 2019, Estévez announced that the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, located in the Nombre de Dios mission, had been designated by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops as a national shrine.^[17] Estévez retired in 2022.

The current bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine is Bishop Erik T. Pohlmeier from the Diocese of Little Rock, appointed by Pope Francis in 2022

Sex abuse

The parents of an 11-year-old girl met with Bishop Snyder in 1991 to say that their daughter told them she had been sexually assaulted by Reverend William Malone. Snyder had dismissed the allegations because the girl did not attend the meeting. However, in 1992, Snyder moved Malone to a different parish in Palm Coast. When Malone transferred back to New York that same year, the diocese learned that he had impregnated another girl. Snyder secretly arranged child support payments from the diocese to the girl.^[18]

In 2003, the woman who accused Malone in 1991 repeated her allegations to Bishop Galeone. He never submitted the accusation to the diocesan review board, nor contacted the local district attorney. She returned to the diocese in 2018 with the same accusations. This time, the review board looked at the allegations and deemed them credible.^[18] After Malone was publicly listed with credible accusations, three more women in 2019 accused him of sexual abuse.

In April 2016, Galeone removed Reverend Stephen Charest from his post as pastor of Holy Spirit Parish in Lake Wales. Charest had been arrested earlier that month for solicitation to commit lewdness. Charest was arrested after soliciting a sex act from an undercover sheriff's deputy in a wooded area in the town.^[19]

In March 2020, the diocese removed Reverend John H. Dux from ministry after determining that sex abuse allegations against him from 1976 were credible.^[20] His accuser, Patrick Colville, said that Dux took him when he was 14 to the Florida State Fair near Tampa in 1976. That night in a hotel room, Dux forced Colville to perform oral sex.^[21] A second man came forward to accuse Dux of similar alleged crimes between 1980 and 1982 at St. Madeleine Sophie in High Springs.^[21]

In November 2020, the state of Florida released a list of 97 Catholic priests who were "credibly accused" of committing sex abuse, with five accused of committing sex abuse while serving in the diocese.^[22] However, a total of 13 priests on this statewide list were tied to the diocese.^[23]

Bishops of Saint Augustine

1. Augustin Verot, P.S.S. (1870–1876)
2. John Moore (1877–1901)
3. William John Kenny (1902–1913)
4. Michael Joseph Curley (1914–1921), appointed Archbishop of Baltimore-Washington
5. Patrick Joseph Barry (1922–1940)
6. Joseph Patrick Hurley (1940–1967), Archbishop (personal title) in 1949
7. Paul Francis Tanner (1968–1979)
8. John J. Snyder (1979–2000)
9. Victor Galeone (2001–2011)
10. Felipe de Jesús Estévez (2011–2022)
11. Erik T. Pohlmeier (2022–present)

Auxiliary bishop

• Thomas Joseph McDonough (1947-1957), appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Savannah and later Bishop of Savannah and Archbishop of Louisville

Other diocesan priests who became bishops

• Maurice Patrick Foley, appointed Bishop of Tuguegarao in the Philippines in 1910
• William Turner, appointed Bishop of Buffalo in 1919
• John Joseph Fitzpatrick (priest here, 1948–1958), appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Miami in 1968 and later Bishop of Brownsville
• William Thomas Larkin, appointed Bishop of Saint Petersburg in 1979
• Joseph Keith Symons, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Saint Petersburg in 1981
• Robert Joseph Baker, appointed Bishop of Charleston in 1999 and later Bishop of Birmingham
• Thanh Thai Nguyen, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Orange in 2017

High schools

• Bishop John J. Snyder High School – Jacksonville
• Bishop Kenny High School – Jacksonville
• Morning Star High School – Jacksonville
• St. Francis High School – Gainesville
• St. Joseph Academy – St. Augustine^[24]

St. Michael Academy – Fernandina Beach

Elementary schools

• Annunciation – Middleburg
• Assumption – Jacksonville
• Blessed Trinity – Jacksonville
• Cathedral Parish – St. Augustine
• Christ the King – Jacksonville
• Epiphany – Lake City
• Guardian – Jacksonville
• Holy Family – Jacksonville
• Holy Spirit – Jacksonville
• Morning Star – Jacksonville
• Palmer Academy – Ponte Vedra Beach
• Queen of Peace – Gainesville
• Resurrection – Jacksonville
• Sacred Heart
• St Elizabeth Ann Seton – Palm Coast
• St. Joseph – Jacksonville
• St. Matthew – Jacksonville
• St. Michael Academy – Fernandina Beach
• St. Patrick – Jacksonville
• St. Patrick Interparish – Gainesville
• St. Paul – Jacksonville Beach
• St. Paul – Riverside
• San Jose – Jacksonville,
• San Juan del Rio – Saint Johns^[24]

Basilicas

• Basilica of the Immaculate Conception - Pope Francis raised Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville to a Minor Basilica in 2013.^[26]
• Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine (St. Augustine, Florida) - Originally established in 1565 and re-built in the 18th century, it is the oldest church in Florida.