Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence

Unlike the other British colonies in North America, the colony of Providence Plantations was founded in 1643 on the basis of religious tolerance for all Christians.[3] However, by 1719, the Rhode Island General Assembly had enacted a law disenfranchising Catholics from voting to discourage any from moving to the colony.[4]

During the American Revolution, a French army camped in Newport and Providence; the first Catholic masses in the colony were celebrated there for these soldiers. After the Revolution, the new State of Rhode Island allowed Catholics to vote in 1783.[5]

In 1789, the Vatican erected the Diocese of Baltimore to cover the entire territory of the new United States.[6] After the uprising by enslaved peoples in the French colony of Guadeloupe, several French families migrated to Bristol and Providence. In 1808, the Vatican erected the Diocese of Boston, covering Rhode Island and the rest of New England.

The construction of Fort Adams in Newport and the establishment of cotton mills in Pawtucket started attracting Irish Catholic immigrants to Rhode Island. The first Catholic church in Rhode Island was established in 1828 in Newport to minister to Catholics working on the fort.[7]

In the 1830s, Reverend John Corry started looking for a plot of land to build the first Catholic church in Providence. However, many landowners were unwilling to go against anti-Catholic sentiment in the city by selling him land. Corry finally obtained a property and starting building Saints Peter and Paul Church, which was dedicated in 1838.[8]

In 1843, Pope Gregory XVI erected the Diocese of Hartford, which included both Connecticut and Rhode Island. The pope selected Monsignor William Tyler of Boston as the first bishop of Hartford. At the time, only 600 Catholics lived in Hartford, Connecticut, as opposed to 2,000 in Providence.[9] For that reason, Tyler petitioned the Vatican to move the diocesan see from Hartford to Providence.[10] The oldest existing Catholic church in Rhode Island, St. Mary's, was founded in West Warwick in 1844.[11]

On February 16, 1872, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Providence, taking all of Rhode Island from the Diocese of Hartford. The pope also included the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, the Cape Cod area, and other parts of southern Massachusetts in the new diocese.[12] The pope named Reverend Thomas Hendricken as the first bishop of Providence.[13] The new diocese had 125,000 parishioners, 43 churches, nine parish schools and one orphanage.[14]

During Hendricken's tenure, French Canadian Catholics started migrating into the diocese to work in the textile mills in Woonsocket and Fall River, Massachusetts.[15] Hendricken created 13 English-speaking parishes and two French-speaking parishes during this time. By 1873, the immigration into the diocese slowed and the post-war boom ended with many of his flock unemployed or on reduced wages. Hendricken started the design and construction of the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul.

After Hendricksen died in 1886, Pope Leo XIII in 1887 named Reverend Matthew Harkins of Boston as the next bishop of Providence.[16] During his tenure as bishop, Harkins constructed the following institutions:

• Home for the Aged in Pawtucket (1881)
• St. Maria Working Girls' Home in Providence (1894)
• St. Joseph's Hospital in Providence (started 1891)
• St. Vincent de Paul Infant Asylum (1892)
• the Working Boys' Home (started 1897)
• the House of the Good Shepherd (1904)
• Nazareth Home (1906)[15]

During Harkins's tenure, the diocese grew to be among the largest in the country and to have one of the highest percentage of Catholics. The diocese had 20 French Canadian parishes, two Italian parishes, four Polish parishes, one Portuguese parish and one Syrian parish.[15]

In 1904, the Vatican split the Diocese of Fall River out of the Diocese of Providence, removing all of the Massachusetts counties and islands. This left 190,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Providence. During his tenure as bishop, Harkins increased the number of parishes in the diocese from 39 to 95; most of these new parishes were erected in the cities and growing suburbs, and were designated for different ethnic groups.[17] He founded Providence College in 1917.

Due to Harkins's advancing age and declining health, the Vatican appointed two auxiliary bishops to the diocese between 1914 and 1917. In 1919, the pope named William Hickey from the Diocese of Worcester as coadjutor bishop in 1919 to assist Harkins.[17]

When Harkins died in 1921, Hickey automatically succeeded him as bishop of Providence. In 1923, Hickey started an initiative to upgrade and build new high schools in the diocese. The diocese soon unveiled plans to upgrade Mount Saint Charles Academy, a secondary school in Woonsocket. The academy had been teaching classes in French to accommodate the French Canadian Catholic population in the town. However, it soon became clear that Hickey intended for the classes in the renovated school to be taught in English only. The parishioners became angry that they were being forced to pay for their children to be taught in English. Elphege Daignault, a Woonsocket lawyer, became a protest leader. In a swipe at Hickey, he labeled the Irish-American clergy as “national assassins".[18] In 1924, the dissidents founded the newspaper La Sentinelle, to express their opposition to Hickey's plan. The dissidents were now called Sentinellists.[19][18]

Daignault and the Sentinellists first appealed Hickey's plans to Archbishop Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi, the apostolic delegate, or Vatican representative, to the United States. When that appeal failed, Daignault sued the diocese in state court in Rhode Island. The Rhode Island Supreme Court eventually ruled that it had no jurisdiction in church affairs. By this point, the controversy had gained publicity in French Canadian communities throughout the United States and Canada. The Sentinellists finally sent a delegation to Vatican City to appeal directly to Pope Pius XI, but he refused to see them.[20][21]

In 1927, Hickey excommunicated Daignault and other Sentinellists and placed La Sentinelle on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, prohibiting Catholics from reading it. Eventually, Daignault and the others recanted their opposition to Hickey and he lifted their excommunications.[21] Hickey died in 1933.

To replace Hickey, Pius XI named Monsignor Francis Patrick Keough of Hartford as the next bishop of Providence. During the Great Depression, Keough assigned chaplains to Civilian Conservation Corps work crews in Rhode Island. In 1939, he purchased the Nelson W. Aldrich estate at Warwick Neck, which had suffered damage in the 1938 New England hurricane, erecting Our Lady of Providence Seminary at the estate. In 1947, real estate developer Robert Wilson Goelet donated his family estate, Ochre Court in Newport, to the Sisters of Mercy. They founded Salve Regina University there.[22]

During Keough's tenure as bishop, the Catholic population of the diocese increased from 325,000 to 425,000, and the number of clergy grew by fifty percent.[23] He also founded a minor seminary, eased tensions between the French- and English-speaking parishioners, and reduced the heavy debt load of the diocese.[24] Keough was named Archbishop of Baltimore in 1947.

Reverend Russell J. McVinney was the next bishop of Providence, named by Pius XII in 1948. During his tenure in Providence, McVinney established 28 new parishes, and opened Our Lady of Fatima Hospital. In 1952, McVinney declared that:

• Catholic lawyers in the diocese were forbidden from representing plaintiffs in legal separations, divorces or annulments of catholic marriages without prior permission from McVinney.
• Catholics in the diocese were forbidden from attending marriage ceremonies of a Catholic by a non-Catholic clergyman or a justice of the peace. They could not show their approval of the union by attending the wedding party or giving a wedding gift.
• Catholics in the diocese who were themselves invalidly married were forbidden from acting as witnesses, ushers, or bridesmaids at Catholic weddings. All Catholics were forbidden to act as witnesses, ushers or bridesmaids at non-Catholic weddings.[25][26]

McVinney founded the Sisters of Our Lady of Providence in 1955 and the Brothers of Our Lady of Providence in 1959.

Following the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, McVinney created a diocesan liturgical commission in 1964 and one of the first diocesan ecumenical commissions in 1965.[27] He also established the Catholic Inner City Apostolate in 1966 and the diocesan human relations commission in 1967.[27]

During the 1970 U.S. Senate election, McVinney chastised Reverend John McLaughlin, then a Jesuit priest working in Providence, for running for the United States Senate without McVinney's permission. McVinney said that McLaughlin's candidacy "has caused a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding in this state."[28] McLaughlin responded that he did not need McVinney's permission to run for office. McLaughlin also noted that McVinney and his opponent, Senator John O. Pastore, were "lifelong friends."[28]

After McVinney died in 1971, Pope Paul VI named Monsignor Louis Edward Gelineau from the Diocese of Burlington as the sixth bishop of Providence.[29] In 1985, Gélineau registered opposition to an ordinance for the City of Providence to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in employment, housing, credit and access to public accommodations. He said,

"Homosexual acts are contrary to God's command and contrary to his purpose in creating sex. To give support to this proposed legislation may easily be interpreted as supporting the homosexual lifestyle."[30]

In 1988, Gélineau declared that removing a feeding tube from 48-year-old Marcia Gray, a comatose Rhode Island woman, "does not contradict Catholic moral theology," but emphasized that he "in no way supports or condones the practice of euthanasia."[31]

Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop Robert Edward Mulvee from the Diocese of Wilmington as coadjutor bishop of Providence in 1995. After Gélineau retired in 1997, Mulvee automatically succeeded him as bishop.[32] Mulvee retired in 2005.

The next bishop of Providence was Bishop Thomas Joseph Tobin from the Diocese of Youngstown, named by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. In 2022, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Richard Garth Henning from the Diocese of Rockville Centre as coadjutor bishop of Providence. When Tobin retired in 2023, Henning automatically succeeded him.[33][34]

As of 2023, Henning is the bishop of Providence.

1. Thomas Francis Hendricken (1872–1886)
2. Matthew Harkins (1887–1921)
3. William A. Hickey (1921–1933)
4. Francis Patrick Keough (1934–1947), appointed Archbishop of Baltimore
5. Russell Joseph McVinney (1948–1971)
6. Louis Edward Gelineau (1972–1997)
7. Robert Edward Mulvee (1997–2005; coadjutor bishop 1995–1997)
8. Thomas Joseph Tobin (2005–2023)
9. Richard Garth Henning (2023–present)

• Thomas Francis Doran (1915–1916)
• Denis Matthew Lowney (1917–1918)
• Thomas Francis Maloney (1960–1962)
• Bernard Matthew Kelly (1964–1971)
• Kenneth Anthony Angell (1974–1992), appointed Bishop of Burlington
• Robert Joseph McManus (1999–2004), appointed Bishop of Worcester
• Robert C. Evans (2009–2022)

• Lawrence Stephen McMahon, appointed Bishop of Hartford in 1879
• Austin Dowling, appointed Bishop of Des Moines in 1912
• Ernest Bertrand Boland, O.P., appointed Bishop of Multan in Pakistan in 1966
• Daniel Patrick Reilly, appointed Bishop of Norwich, Connecticut, in 1975 and Bishop of Worcester in 1994
• Francis Xavier Roque, appointed Auxiliary Bishop for the Military Services, USA in 1983
• Salvatore Ronald Matano, appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Burlington in 2005 and subsequently succeeded to that diocese; later appointed Bishop of Rochester

• Bishop Hendricken High School – Warwick
• La Salle Academy – Providence
• Mount Saint Charles Academy – Woonsocket
• Prout School – South Kingstown
• St. Mary Academy – Bay View – East Providence
• St. Patrick Academy – Providence
• St. Raphael Academy – Pawtucket[42]

Portsmouth Abbey School – Portsmouth[42]