Roman Catholic Diocese of El Paso

The El Paso region was part of several several Catholic jurisdictions before becoming the Diocese of El Paso. The Diocese of Durango was under Spanish, then Mexican control. After 1850, the succeeding vicariates and dioceses were under American control.

• Diocese of Durango (1620 to 1850)
• Vicariate Apostolic of New Mexico (1850 to 1853)[3]
• Diocese of Santa Fe (1853 to 1868)
• Vicariate Apostolic of Arizona (1881 to 1897)[4]

From 1891 to 1914, the El Paso area was taken from the Vicariate Apostolic of Arizona and divided between the newly formed Dioceses of Dallas, San Antonio and Tucson.[5]

In 1680, several of the Pueblo clans in present day New Mexico revolted against the Spanish occupiers. After taking heavy losses in Santa Fe, the Spanish were able to flee with many of their Native American enslaved people to the El Paso Valley. Many in this group elected to stay in the area instead of returning to the Spanish provinces in Mexico. Several Catholic missionaries also stayed in El Paso.[6]

The missionaries in 1680 established the Mission Corpus Christi de la Isleta del Sur in what is today the Mission Valley district of El Paso. The mission is considered the oldest continuously functioning parish in the United States.[7] The same missionaries established the Mission Nuestra Señora de la Limpia Concepción de Los Piros de Socorro del Sur near El Paso that same year. Its purpose was to serve both Spaniards and Native Americans from New Mexico. In the 1770s, missionaries built a presidio chapel at a Spanish military outpost in San Elizario.[7]

After the Mexican War of Independence ended in 1821, the new Republic of Mexico took over Texas from Spain. Eastern Texas in 1836 became the Republic of Texas, but West Texas, included the El Paso Valley, remained disputed territory. However, the peace treaty ending the Mexican–American War gave the United States control of West Texas.

San José de Concordia el Alto church was erected in 1859 on the site of the present Concordia Cemetery outside of El Paso. It was the nearest Catholic church for El Paso residents at the time. Often Catholics from El Paso boarded a hand-pulled ferry to attend mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Juárez.[8]

The Sisters of Loretto opened St. Joseph's Academy, later to be called Loretto Academy, in 1879 in San Elizario.[9] The first Catholic church in the City of El Paso, St. Mary's, was opened in 1882.[8]

In the 1880s, the new railroad lines in El Paso creating an influx of Catholic immigrants. In 1892, the Jesuit missionary Carlos Pinto, superior of the Jesuits in the region, became pastor of St. Mary's in El Paso. Over the years, he established the Sacred Heart, Immaculate Conception, St. Ignatius, Guardian Angel, and Holy Family parishes. Pinto sent Jesuits through the rural areas in West Texas and southern New Mexico by car and horseback.[10] St. Mary's School was opened for Catholic children in 1903.[8]

By the 1890s, many tuberculosis patients were coming to El Paso due to its healthful climate. To accommodate their needs along with the growing city population, the Sisters of Charity opened the Hotel Dieu Hospital there in 1894.[11] The Temple San Ignacio de Loyola was established in El Paso in 1905, and underwent extensive remodeling seven years later.[12]

On March 3, 1914, Pope Pius X established the Diocese of El Paso, with territory taken from the Dioceses of Dallas, San Antonio and Tucson. The new diocese contained counties in both southern New Mexico and West Texas. The pope named Jesuit John J. Brown as first bishop of El Paso in January 1915, but poor health forced him to resign in June.[13] In 1915, the pope named Reverend Anthony Schuler as Brown's replacement.[14]

At the beginning of Schuler's tenure in 1915, the diocese had 31 priests, 22 parishes, 58 missions, nine parochial schools, and three academies to serve 64,440 Catholics.[15] Schuler oversaw the construction of St. Patrick's Cathedral in El Paso. To raise funds, the diocese announced that the first group to raise $10,000 would get to name the new cathedral. The winner was a group of Irish Catholic women, who chose St. Patrick. At the time, El Paso was a major center of the mining industry in the region, with many of the miners being Irish Catholics.[16][17]

During the Mexican Revolution, Schuler provided refuge in El Paso for many clergy, members of religious orders and seminarians fleeing persecution in Mexico.[18] One such refugee was the Mexican seminarian Peter of Jesus Maldonado, who Schuler ordained a priest in 1918. Maldonado returned to Mexico to serve in ministry; he was murdered in Santa Isabel, Mexico, in 1937.

In 1924, Schuler opened St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and Cathedral High School in El Paso.[8] In the 1930s, the diocese purchased 400 acres of desert property in Sunland Park, New Mexico, for the construction of a 40 statue of Jesus Christ. The American sculptor Urbici Soler y Manonelles completed the Christ the King statue in 1939. It overlooks Texas and New Mexico as well as the State of Chihuahua in Mexico.[19]

In 1941, Pope Pius XII appointed Auxiliary Bishop Sidney Metzger of Santa Fe as coadjutor bishop of El Paso to assist Schuler. When Schuler retired in 1942, Metzger automatically succeeded him as bishop of El Paso.[20]

During the first few years of his term, with the help of the Catholic Church Extension Society, Metzger travelled the United States making his appeal from the pulpit for funds to erect new apostolates needed by the diocese. Metzger built the current St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, two Catholic youth organisation camps in the New Mexico mountains, and Holy Cross Retreat near Las Cruces.

In October 1961, the Vatican erected the Diocese of San Angelo from the eastern part of the Diocese of El Paso. Metzger oversaw the implementation of the Second Vatican Council's decrees in the diocese. Metzger was also a strong advocate for social justice issues such as the rights of workers to collective bargaining. In 1972, over 3,000 employees of Farah Manufacturing Company in El Paso went on strike in a work stoppage that lasted 20 months. Metzger gained national attention for his advocacy on behalf of the workers. At the time,k Metzger said, "I feel that the company is acting unjustly in denying to the workers the basic right to collective bargaining." William Farah, president of Farah Manufacturing, labeled Metzger a member of the "rotten old bourgeoisie" and a man who is "lolling in wealth".[21]

After Metzger retired in 1978, Pope Paul VI named Auxiliary Bishop Patrick Flores of San Antonio to succeed him. After serving just over one year in El Paso, Flores was named archbishop of San Antonio.[22]

The next bishop of El Paso was Auxiliary Bishop Raymundo Peña of San Antonio, named by Pope John Paul II in 1980.[23] Peña worked on social justice issues along with the cause of undocumented immigrants. In 1982, John Paul II erected the Diocese of Las Cruces, taking the New Mexico counties from the Diocese of El Paso. Peña established Tepeyac Institute in 1988 to prepare laity members for many ministries within the diocese.[24]

In 1994, John Paul II named Peña as bishop of the Diocese of Brownsville. His replacement in El Paso was Auxiliary Bishop Armando Xavier Ochoa of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, appointed by the pope in 1996.[25] Ochoa encouraged vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and the strengthening of diocesan ministries. In 1999, the diocese began a cooperative program with the Archdiocese of Atlanta for preparing seminarians from Georgia for ministry to the growing Hispanic population.

In 2000, Peter of Jesus Maldonado, the diocese priest murdered in 1937, was canonized by John Paul II.[26] In 2001, the diocese entered into a pact of solidarity with the Dioceses of Choluteca and Tegucigalpa in Honduras, along with the Diocese of Brownsville, in response to the devastation caused in 1998 by Hurricane Mitch in Central America. In 2004, Ochoa established the Committee on a Five-Year Plan for Vocations and a Committee on the Life and Ministry of Priests. He initiated the annual diocesan congresses.[27] The diocese erected a memorial commemorating Maldonado's ordination in St. Patrick Cathedral in 2005.

In 2011 Pope Benedict XVI appointed Ochoa as bishop of the Diocese of Fresno. In May 2013, Pope Francis appointed Auxiliary Bishop Mark J. Seitz of Dallas to succeed Ochoa. As of 2023, Seitz is the current bishop of the Diocese of El Paso.

In January 2019, the Diocese of El Paso released the names of 30 diocesan clergy who were "credibly accused" of committing sexual abuse acts against minors.[28][29][30]

Reverend Miguel Luna was convicted in July 2019 of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl from 1991 to 1998 at an El Paso church.[31] Two other women testified of being raped by Luna at his trial. He was sentenced to 18 years in state prison.[32]

In May 2020, the diocese and two parishes in Alamogordo, New Mexico, were named in a sexual abuse lawsuit.[33] The plaintiff accused the defendants of protecting David Holley after he sexually abused the plaintiff in the 1970s.[33] Holley was a priest from the Diocese of Worcester living at the Servants of the Paraclete facility in Alamogordo at the time of the alleged crimes. He was being treated for sexually abusing minors in Massachusetts. The plaintiff also accused Holley of assault and battery and possession of child pornography.[33]

In August 2020, a woman sued the diocese, claiming that she had been sexually abused by Damian Gamboa, a diocesan priest at the St. Francis de Paula Church in Tularosa, New Mexico, in the early 1980s.[34] The New Mexico parish was later transferred to the Diocese of Las Cruces, which was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.[34]

The diocese settled a lawsuit in January 2023 with a man who had alleged being sexually abused in Deming, New Mexico, by Reverd Pedro Martinez from Mt. Carmel parish in El Paso, starting in 1970.[35]

1. Anthony Joseph Schuler, S.J. (1915-1942)
2. Sidney Matthew Metzger (1942-1978)
3. Patrick Fernandez Flores (1978-1979), appointed Archbishop of San Antonio
4. Raymundo Joseph Peña (1980-1994), appointed Bishop of Brownsville
5. Armando Xavier Ochoa (1996-2011), appointed Bishop of Fresno
6. Mark Joseph Seitz (2013–present)

(John J. Brown, S.J. was appointed in 1915; did not take effect.)

Sidney Matthew Metzger (1941-1942)

Anthony Cerdan Celino (2023–present)

• Cathedral High School – El Paso
• Father Yermo High School – El Paso
• Loretto Academy – El Paso