Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati () covers the southwest region of the U.S. state of Ohio, including the greater Cincinnati and Dayton metropolitan areas. The Archbishop of Cincinnati is Most Rev. Dennis Marion Schnurr.

Geography

In total, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati encompasses 230 parishes in 19 counties, , with the total membership of baptized Catholics around 500,000. The Archdiocese administers 110 associated parochial schools and diocesan elementary schools. The mother church is the Cathedral of St. Peter in Chains, located at the corner of 8th and Plum Streets in Downtown Cincinnati.

Cincinnati is the metropolis of the Ecclesiastical Province of Cincinnati, which encompasses the entire state of Ohio and is composed of the Archdiocese and its five suffragan dioceses: Cleveland, Columbus, Steubenville, Toledo, and Youngstown.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati is bordered by the Diocese of Toledo to the north, the Diocese of Columbus to the east, the Diocese of Covington to the south, and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and Diocese of Lafayette to the west.

History
Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Cincinnati on 19 June 1821, in territory taken from the Diocese of Bardstown.  At the time, there was an unwritten prohibition against construction of Catholic churches in Cincinnati.  The first church was therefore constructed just beyond the city boundaries.  The diocese lost territory on 8 March 1833, when Pope Gregory XVI erected the Diocese of Detroit and again on 23 April 1847, when Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Cleveland.

On July 19, 1850, Pope Pius IX elevated the diocese to an Archdiocese and on March 3, 1868, he took territory to erect the Diocese of Columbus.

Sexual abuse scandals

In November 2003, following a sexual abuse scandal and two-year investigation by the Hamilton County prosecutor's office, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk entered a plea of nolo contendere regarding five misdemeanor charges of failure to report allegations of child molestation. The court rendered no criminal judgment on the allegations themselves, only on the diocese's failure to report the allegations. 

In August 2019, it was announced that Auxiliary Bishop Joseph R. Binzer, the Archdiocese's Vicar General who was blamed for failing to inform the Archbishop of Cincinnati about a series of allegations that a priest had engaged in inappropriate behavior with teenage boys would be removed from his position as head of priest personnel, effective immediately, while the archdiocese begins its own internal investigation. Binzer has yet to be removed as either the Archdiocese's Vicar General or as an Auxiliary Bishop to the Archdiocese as well. Fr. Geoff Drew, the priest who Binzer had protected, had previously faced allegations in other parishes in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, only to have Binzer transfer him after they surfaced. Binzer had previously transferred Drew to different parishes in the Archdiocese in 2013 and 2015 following allegation of inappropriate contact with minors. On July 23, 2019, Drew was suspended from public ministry following the discovery of inappropriate text messages he sent to one of his teenage parishioners at St. Ignatius of Loyola in Green Township, where he transferred to in 2018 after more reports of inappropriate contact with minors surfaced.

On August 19, 2019, local authorities arrested Drew and charged him with nine counts of sex abuse. He will also not be released from prison unless he can post a $5 million bail.

Bishops

Bishops of Cincinnati
 Edward Fenwick, O.P. (1822–1833)

Archbishops of Cincinnati
 John Baptist Purcell (1833–1883), elevated to Archbishop in 1850
 William Henry Elder (1883–1903)
 Henry K. Moeller (1903–1925)
 Joseph Chartrand (1925), did not take effect
 John Timothy McNicholas O.P. (1925–1950)
 Karl Joseph Alter (1950–1969)
 Paul Francis Leibold (1969–1972)
 Joseph Bernardin (1972–1982), appointed Archbishop of Chicago (elevated to Cardinal in 1983)
 Daniel Edward Pilarczyk (1982–2009)
 Dennis Marion Schnurr (2009–present)

Coadjutor Archbishops
 William Henry Elder (1880-1883)
 Henry K. Moeller (1903-1904)
 Dennis Marion Schnurr (2008-2009)

Auxiliary Bishops
 Sylvester Horton Rosecrans (1861–1868), appointed Bishop of Columbus
 Joseph H. Albers (1929–1937), appointed Bishop of Lansing
 George John Rehring (1937–1950), appointed Bishop of Toledo
 Clarence George Issenmann (1954–1957), Bishop of Columbus (1932–1954)
 Paul Francis Leibold (1958–1966), appointed Bishop of  Evansville and later Archbishop of Cincinnati
 Edward Anthony McCarthy (1965–1969) appointed Bishop of Phoenix and later Coadjutor Archbishop and Archbishop of Miami
 Nicholas Thomas Elko (1970–1985)
 Daniel Edward Pilarczyk (1974–1982) appointed Archbishop of Cincinnati
 James Henry Garland (1984–1992) appointed Bishop of Marquette
 Carl Kevin Moeddel (1993–2007)
 Joseph R. Binzer (2011–present)

Other Affiliated Bishops
The following men began their service as priests in Cincinnati before being appointed bishops elsewhere (years in parentheses refer to their years in Cincinnati):
 John Martin Henni, Bishop and later Archbishop of Milwaukee (1829–1843)
 Henry Damian Juncker, Bishop of Alton (1834–1857)
 Joshua Maria Young, Bishop of Erie (1838–1853)
 John Baptist Lamy, Vicar Apostolic of New Mexico and later Bishop and Archbishop of Santa Fe (1838–1850)
 James Frederick Bryan Wood, Coadjutor Bishop and later Bishop and Archbishop of Philadelphia (1844–1857)
 John Henry Luers, Bishop of Fort Wayne (1846–1857)
 Caspar Henry Borgess, Coadjutor Bishop and later Bishop of Detroit (1848–1870)
 Richard Gilmour, Bishop of Cleveland (1852–1872)
 John Quinlan, Bishop of Mobile (1852–1859)
 Augustus Toebbe, Bishop of Covington (1854–1869)
 Joseph Gregory Dwenger, Bishop of Fort Wayne (1859–1867)
 Henry Richter, Bishop of Grand Rapids (1865–1883)
 Francis Beckman, appointed Bishop of Lincoln and later Archbishop of Dubuque (1902–1923)

 Urban John Vehr, Bishop and later Archbishop of Denver (1915–1931)
 Francis Augustine Thill, Bishop of Salina (1920–1938) (He became Bishop of Concordia in 1938, and was still in office there when the diocese name was changed from Concordia to Salina in 1944.)
 Anthony John King Mussio, Bishop of Steubenville (1935–1945)
 John Joseph Kaising, Auxiliary Bishop for the Military Services, USA (1962–2000)
 Robert Daniel Conlon, Bishop of Steubenville and later Bishop of Joliet (1977–2002)

Education

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati operates a large school system that is especially well-attended in the Cincinnati area. As of 2011, 43,641 students enroll in the Archdiocese's 115 schools, making it the sixth largest Catholic school system in the United States. In Hamilton County, where most private schools are run by the Archdiocese, nearly a quarter of students (36,684 as of 2007) attend private schools, a rate only second to St. Louis County, Missouri.

The 23 Catholic high schools in the region operate under varying degrees of archdiocesan control. Several are owned and operated by the Archdiocese, while other interparochial schools are run by groups of parishes under archdiocesan supervision. Most of the interparochial and non-archdiocesan high schools are operated by religious institutes (as noted in the adjacent table). Most of the schools' athletic teams belong to the Greater Catholic League, which consists of a co-ed division, the Girls Greater Cincinnati League, and a division for all-male schools.

The Archdiocese also includes 92 parochial and diocesan elementary schools, with a combined enrollment of 30,312, as of 2011 . These schools can be found in the urban and suburban areas of Cincinnati and Dayton, as well as some of the smaller towns within the Archdiocesan boundaries. Each parochial school is owned and operated by its parish, rather than by the Archdiocese's Catholic Schools Office. However, in March 2011, the Archdiocese announced its intention of eventually unifying the schools under one school system. , the interim Superintendent of Catholic Schools is Susie Gibbons.

Five of the high schools are named after former archbishops of the diocese. A parochial elementary school in Dayton is also named after Archbishop Liebold.

The Archdiocese sponsors the Athenaeum of Ohio – Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West seminary in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Cincinnati.

Superintendents 
 Msgr. Carl J. Ryan (1946–1964)
 Fr. Herman H. Kenning (1970–1974)
 Sr. Kathryn Ann Connelly, S.C. (1983–2002)
 Bro. Joseph Kamis, SM (2002–2010)
 Dr. Jim Riggs, Ph.D. (2010–2015)
 Ms. Susie Gibbons (2015–present)

Media

Newspapers
The Archdiocese is served by The Catholic Telegraph, the diocesan newspaper, which is described on its website as the United States' oldest continuously published Catholic diocesan newspaper. Its defunct sister newspaper, Der Wahrheitsfreund, was the first German Catholic newspaper in the country.

The national magazine St. Anthony Messenger is published in Cincinnati by the Franciscan Friars with the archdiocese's ecclesiastical approval.

Radio stations

Several area Catholic radio stations, owned by separate entities, serve the Archdiocese:

WNOP 740 AM Licensed to Newport, Kentucky. "Sacred Heart Radio" plus a sister station
WHSS 89.5 FM in Hamilton, a repeater of WNOP.
WULM 1600 AM located in Springfield "Radio Maria" (based at KJMJ in Alexandria, Louisiana) serving portions of the Dayton area: a fifty-mile radius in the daytime. (ten mile radius at night) plus a sister station:
WHJM 88.7 FM licensed in Anna, transmitting from Botkins with a live studio located in nearby Minster which serves a forty-mile radius within the Upper Miami Valley and southern portions of the Lima area. Radio Maria also streams on the internet
 WLRU-LP 106.9 FM in Hillsboro.

Other stations reach into portions of the Archdiocese:

WVSG 820 AM located in Columbus "St. Gabriel Radio" (the former WOSU (AM).
WRDF 106.3 FM licensed in Columbia City, Indiana with studio in Fort Wayne as "Redeemer Radio" which can be heard in portions of the northwestern corner of the Archdiocese, plus an audio stream.

See also
 Franciscan Media

References

External links
Archdiocese of Cincinnati Official Site

Cincinnati
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Category:Christianity in Cincinnati
Cincinnati
Cincinnati
Category:1821 establishments in Ohio