The Diocese of Manchester () is a diocese of the Catholic Church for New Hampshire in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Boston. The mother church is the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Manchester.

History

1680 to 1783

During the 17th century, the first few Catholics in present-day New Hampshire area were probably members of the Sokwaki and Pennacook tribes who had been converted by missionaries from the French colony of New France. However, the vast majority of the first settlers in New Hampshire were English Protestants, many of them Puritans from Massachusetts. Like the other American colonies, the authorities in New Hampshire enacted restrictions on the legal rights of Catholics. In 1679, a royal commission in Portsmouth required all public officials and ministers in the Province of New Hampshire, including Catholics, to take an oath of supremacy to the Anglican Church.

During King William's War in the late 1600s, Native American allies of the French captured several European women in New Hampshire. These women later converted to Catholicism; one of them traveled to New France to enter an Ursuline convent. However, there would be no organized Catholic communities in New Hampshire until the 19th century. In 1896, the province enacted a new test oath aimed at Catholics. However, when the new State of New Hampshire enacted its constitution in 1784, it failed to remove the colonial oath requirements.

Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Boston on April 8, 1808, including New Hampshire in its jurisdiction. The first Catholic church in New Hampshire, St. Mary's, was built in 1823 in Claremont by a father and son, both Anglican priests, who had converted to Catholicism. The first parish in New Hampshire was St. Aloysius in Dover, erected in 1830. It was estimated in 1835 that there were 387 Catholics, two churches, and two priests in the state.

With the industrialization of New Hampshire in the 19th century, many Catholic Irish and French Canadian immigrants started settling there. In 1853, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Portland in Maine, including New Hampshire in its territory. During Bradley's tenure, the Catholic population went from 45,000 to over 100,000 and the number of priests from 40 to 107.

After Bradley's death in late 1903, Pope Pius X appointed John Delany as the second bishop of Manchester. However, after only 21 months in office, Delany died in 1906. His replacement as bishop was George Guertin, appointed by Pius X in 1907. Between 1907 and 1926, Guertin added 16 new parishes in the diocese; five were French-speaking and two were Polish-speaking. During World War I, Guertin had the diocese purchase a $15,000 war bond; using his personal funds, he purchased $5 war saving stamps for each student in the cathedral parish school. In September 1930, Guertin decreed that Catholic parents in the diocese must send their children to Catholic schools or be denied absolution.

After Guertin died in 1931, Pope Pius XI appointed Auxiliary Bishop John Peterson from the Archdiocese of Boston as the fourth bishop of Manchester. A major area of tension in the diocese came from ethnic strife between the Irish and French-Canadian communities. A French-speaker, Peterson told a Manchester dinner audience in 1932 that he condemned all religious and ethnic hatred and would not support any cause based in hatred. He was able to gain the trust of French-Canadian Catholics in the diocese with his words and actions. Rivier College for girls was founded by the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary in Nashua in 1933. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, Peterson enacted austerity spending measures for the diocese. The number of parishioners increased by 50,000, and the number of priests and religious from around 650 to over 1,600. During his tenure, the number of Catholics in the diocese increased by 43,000 and the number of parishes by 11; however, weekly Mass attendance declined from over 70% to below 50%. He also founded Magdalen College in Bedford and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack.

In 1989, Pope John Paul II appointed Auxiliary bishop Leo Edward O'Neil of the Archdiocese of Springfield as coadjutor bishop in Manchester.

1990 to present

thumb|Bishop McCormack (2001)

When Gedron retired in 1990, O'Neil succeeded him as bishop of Manchester. During his tenure, O'Neil worked to foster a common vision among New Hampshire Catholics with a program entitled "Renewing the Covenant." He died in 1997.

John Paul II appointed Auxiliary Bishop John McCormack of the Archdiocese of Boston as O'Neil's replacement in 1998. In April 2011, McCormack criticized proposed cuts in the New Hampshire state budget that would impact the poor. In response, Republican State Representative D.J. Bettencourt called McCormack a "pedophile pimp" with no moral authority to criticize anybody. New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman Jack Kimball immediately disavowed Bettencourt's remarks.

After McCormack retired in 2011, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Auxiliary Bishop Peter Libasci from the Diocese of Rockville Centre as bishop of Manchester that same year. In 2014, Edward Arsenault pleaded guilty to embezzling $300,000 during the 2000s from a Catholic hospital, from the estate of a deceased priest and from McCormack. Arsenault spent the money on trips with a male companion. Arsenault was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 and laicized by the Vatican in 2017. As of 2026, Libasci is the bishop.

Sexual abuse

In early 2002, Bishop McCormack announced the names of 14 diocesan priests who had been accused of sexually abusing children.

Court papers released in January 2003 showed that Bishop Gendron destroyed records of sexual abuse by two different priests during the 1980s.

  • The first instance was in 1986 for Philip Petit, a diocesan priest who molested a teenager between 1979 and 1981. Petit left the priesthood in 1986 and Gendron destroyed all of his treatment records at Petit's request. Petit was laicized in 2018.
  • The second instance happened in 1989, when the Servants of the Paraclete treatment facility in New Mexico requested that Gendron destroy the treatment records of Gordon MacRae, a diocesan priest who was a former patient. In 1994, MacRae was sentenced to 33 to 67 years in state prison for molesting children.

A 2003 report by the Attorney General revealed that Gendron helped a priest accused of sexual abuse avoid criminal charges. In 1975, police in Nashua, New Hampshire, had arrested Paul Aube, a diocese priest, after finding him with a minor in a car, both with their pants down. Aube, who had admitted to acts of sexual abuse in 1972, confessed his guilt to Gendron. He asked Gendron to send him for treatment and relieve him of parish duties. Instead, Gendron called the Nashua police chief to drop charges against Aube. Gendron then transferred Aube to a parish in Rochester, New Hampshire. In 1981, the mother of a 15-year-old discovered Aube abusing the minor. When advised of the new allegation, Gendron did not report Aube to the police. In 2002, Aube turned himself into New Hampshire state authorities and became a cooperating witness.

In 2004, Leo Landry, a priest convicted of sexually abusing minors, was sentenced to lifetime probation.

In July 2019, the diocese released a list of 73 priests and religious order members who were "credibly accused" of committing acts of sexual abuse. Some of those listed were criminally convicted, defrocked, removed from public ministry, or died without receiving punishment.

Bishops

thumb|Bishop [[Peter Anthony Libasci|Libasci (2013)]]

Bishops of Manchester

  1. Denis Mary Bradley (1884–1903)
  2. John Bernard Delany (1904–1906)
  3. George Albert Guertin (1907–1931)
  4. John Bertram Peterson (1932–1944)
  5. Matthew Francis Brady (1945–1959)
  6. Ernest John Primeau (1960–1975)
  7. Odore Joseph Gendron (1975–1990)
  8. Leo Edward O'Neil (1990–1997; coadjutor bishop 1989–1990)
  9. John Brendan McCormack (1998–2011)
  10. Peter Anthony Libasci (2011–present)

Auxiliary bishops

  • Robert Edward Mulvee (1977–1985), appointed Bishop of Wilmington and later Coadjutor Bishop of Providence, subsequently succeeding to bishop
  • Joseph John Gerry, O.S.B. (1986–1989), appointed Bishop of Portland
  • Francis Joseph Christian (1996–2018)

Other diocesan priests who became bishop

Thomas Michael O'Leary, appointed Bishop of Springfield in Massachusetts in 1921

Parishes

thumb|Offices of the Diocese of Manchester (2014)

Catholic education

High schools

  • Bishop Brady High School – Concord
  • Bishop Guertin High School – Nashua
  • Holy Family Academy* – Manchester

<!--Appears to be closed: * Immaculate Conception Apostolic School*, Center Harbor -->

  • Mount Royal Academy – Sunapee
  • St. Thomas Aquinas High School – Dover
  • Trinity High School – Manchester

Colleges

  • Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts* – Warner (closed May 2024)
  • Rivier University* – Nashua
  • Saint Anselm College* – Goffstown
  • Thomas More College of Liberal Arts* – Merrimack

References

  • Diocese of Manchester at Catholic-Hierarchy
  • Diocese of Manchester at GCatholic.org
  • Parable - diocesan magazine