Roman Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City

The first Catholic presence in Missouri was from European explorers in the 17th century traveling the Mississippi River. In present-day Hannibal, the first Catholic masses were celebrated by the Belgian missionary, Reverend Louis Hennepin, in 1680 at Bay de Charles.[3] At that time, all of Missouri was part of the French colony of Louisiana.

With the Louisiana Purchase of 1804, Missouri passed from France to the United States and the bishop of the Diocese of New Orleans assumed jurisdiction for Catholics in Missouri. On July 18, 1826, Pope Leo XII erected the Diocese of St. Louis, covering the new state of Missouri along with vast areas of the Great Plains.[4] The Jefferson City region would remain part of this diocese and others for the next 130 years.

The first German language parish west of the Mississippi River, St. Joseph's, was founded in Westphalia in 1835.[5] In Jefferson City, St. Peter's, the first Catholic church, was dedicated in 1846.[6] St. Patrick's was founded in 1862 in Rolla to minister to the Irish Catholic railroad workers.[3]

St. Peter's Church in Jefferson City was the first diocesan cathedral.

On July 2, 1956, Pope Pius XII established the Diocese of Jefferson City. Its territory was taken from the Archdiocese of St. Louis and the Dioceses of Kansas City and Saint Joseph.[7][8] The pope named Auxiliary Bishop Joseph M. Marling of Kansas city as the first bishop of the new parish.[9]

During his tenure, Marline oversaw the construction of a new cathedral, twenty-five churches, twenty-nine schools, thirty rectories, sixteen convents, and a Carmelite monastery. He also established the diocesan newspaper and missions in Peru. Marling retired in 1969.

Pope Paul VI appointed Reverend Michael McAuliffe of Kansas City as the second bishop of Jefferson City in 1969.[10] In 1980, McAuliffe appeared before the Missouri General Assembly to support the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.[11] In 1982, Holy Family Parish in New Haven won a court battle with McAuliffe about the relocation of an ornate marble altar within the church sanctuary. McAuliffe stated that the guidelines of the Second Vatican Council forced him to relocate the altar. The judge ordered McAuliffe and Holy Family Parish to negotiate a compromise solution.[12] McAuliffe retired in 1997.

To replace McAuliffe, Pope John Paul II in 1997 named Monsignor John R. Gaydos of St. Louis as the next bishop of Jefferson City. Gaydos retired early in 2017 due to poor health.[13]

The current bishop of Jefferson City, as of 2023, is Shawn McKnight from the Diocese of Wichita.[14]

In 2001, Bishop Gaydos and the diocese were sued by a former student at St. Thomas Aquinas Preparatory Seminary in Hannibal, Missouri. The plaintiff claimed that Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell of the Diocese of Palm Beach, then rector at the seminary, had sexually exploited him.[15]

In 2002, a new report revealed that the Diocese of Jefferson City paid a secret settlement of $125,000 in 1996 to Christopher Dixon. A former seminarian, Dixon claimed to have been sexually abused by O'Connell in 1969 at the seminary.[16] In 2002, O'Connell admitted abusing two boys at the seminary and resigned as bishop of Palm Beach.[17] In May 2002, facing declining enrollment at Thomas Aquinas Seminary and pending more sexual abuse lawsuits, Gaydos closed it.[18]

In 2003, Bishop McAuliffe and the diocese were sued by a North Carolina man who claimed to have been sexually molested by two diocesan priests when he was a child.[19] That same year, Gaydos and the diocese were named in a sexual abuse lawsuit by a Missouri man. The plaintiff alleged that Reverend Gary Pool and Reverend Kevin Clohessy, two priests in the diocese, had sexually abused him for most of his childhood.[20]

In 2015, the diocese settled for $40,000 a long-standing sexual abuse claim by David Clohessy, the brother of Keven Clohessy, against John Whiteley, a diocese priest. Clohessy had sued the diocese in 1991, claiming that Whitely, then a pastor at St. Pius X Parish in Moberly, had sexually abused him. Clohessy's case was dismissed in 1993 due to the Missouri statute of limitations. However, Clohessy renewed his claim in 2015 and the diocese decided that it was credible.[21][22]

Bishop McKnight announced in 2020 that two diocesan priests, Reverend Robert Duesdieker and Reverend Mel Lahr, had been laicized by the Vatican due to credible accusations of sexual abuse of children.[23] In January 2022, the diocese released a list of clergy accused of violating the Charter for The Protection of Children and Young People issued by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.[24]

1. Joseph M. Marling, C.PP.S. (1956-1969)
2. Michael Francis McAuliffe (1969-1997)
3. John R. Gaydos (1997-2017)
4. Shawn McKnight (2018–present)

Anthony Joseph O'Connell, appointed Bishop of Knoxville in 1988, later Bishop of Palm Beach, resigned due to sexual abuse admission.