Early history

New England's first settlers were Congregationalists and, in Rhode Island, Baptists. Many of them left England because they were disappointed in the lack of reforms in the Church of England. These dissenters followed Martin Luther and John Calvin in rejecting the selling of indulgences, the celebration of a Latin Mass, the doctrine of transubstantiation, and papal authority.^[4]

As these dissenters set up colonies in New England, they enacted legal restrictions on Catholics, including bans on Catholic worship. Massachusetts made it a crime, with a potential life sentence, for a Catholic priest to reside in the colony.^[4]

The political necessity of gaining Catholic support for the American Revolutionary War drove a change in popular attitudes in the colonies. The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, written by John Adams and ratified in 1780, established religious freedom in the new state.^[4] With the Massachusetts constitution being the first state constitution in the United States, its framework of government became a model for the constitutions of other states and, eventually, for the federal constitution.

In 1788, the Abbé de la Poterie, a former French naval chaplain serving in Boston, celebrated the city's first public mass in a converted Huguenot chapel at 24 School Street in Boston, which he named Holy Cross Church. Two refugees from the French Revolution ministering to Boston's Catholic population at the turn of the century, Reverends Francis Anthony Matignon and John Cheverus, raised the funds to build a larger building, the Church of the Holy Cross. These buildings no longer exist, but they were the foundation of the Catholic Church in Massachusetts.^[5]

Formation

Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Boston on April 8, 1808, taking all of New England from the Diocese of Baltimore. The new diocese consisted of the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts (including present-day Maine), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.^[6] The pope named Cheverus as the first bishop of Boston.^[7]

The exponential growth of the Catholic Church in New England through the nineteenth century led the Vatican to create new dioceses out of the Diocese of Boston and later the Archdiocese of Boston.

Diocesan offices

In the 1920s, Cardinal William O'Connell moved the chancery from offices near Holy Cross Cathedral in the South End to 127 Lake Street in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston.^[9] "Lake Street" was a metonym for the bishop and the office of the archdiocese.^[9]

In June 2004, the archdiocese sold the archbishop's residence and the chancery and surrounding lands in Brighton to Boston College, in part to defray costs associated with numerous cases of sexual abuse by clergy of the archdiocese.^[10] The archdiocesan offices of the archdiocese moved to Braintree. The archdiocesan seminary, Saint John's Seminary, remains on the property in Brighton.^[11]

Clergy sexual abuse scandals and settlements

At the beginning of the 21st century the archdiocese was shaken by accusations of sexual abuse by clergy that culminated in the resignation of its archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, on December 13, 2002. In September 2003, the archdiocese settled over 500 abuse-related claims for $85 million.^[12] Victims received an average of $92,000 each and the perpetrators included 140 priests and two others.^[13]

Additional sex abuse allegations within the Archdiocese of Boston surfaced in later years as well. This included alleged abuse at Saint John's Seminary and Arlington Catholic High School.^[14][15][16]

Bishops of Boston

1. Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus (1808–1823) appointed Bishop of Montauban and later Archbishop of Bordeaux (elevated to Cardinal in 1836)
2. Benedict Joseph Fenwick (1825–1846)
3. John Bernard Fitzpatrick (1846–1866; coadjutor bishop 1843–1846)
4. John Joseph Williams (1866–1875; coadjutor bishop 1866); elevated to Archbishop

Archbishops of Boston

1. John Joseph Williams (1875–1907)
2. William Henry O'Connell (1907–1944)
3. Richard James Cushing (1944–1970)
4. Humberto Sousa Medeiros (1970–1983)
5. Bernard Francis Law (1984–2002), resigned; later appointed Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
6. Seán Patrick O'Malley (2003–present)

Current auxiliary bishops of Boston

• Robert Francis Hennessey (2006–present)
• Peter John Uglietto (2010–present)
• Mark William O'Connell (2016–present)
• Robert P. Reed (2016–present)
• Cristiano Borro Barbosa (2024–present)

Former auxiliary bishops of Boston

• John Brady (1891–1910)
• Joseph Gaudentius Anderson (1909–1927)
• John Bertram Peterson (1927–1932), appointed Bishop of Manchester
• Francis Spellman (1932–1939), appointed Archbishop of New York (Cardinal in 1946)
• Richard J. Cushing (1939–1944), appointed Archbishop here (Cardinal in 1958)
• Louis Francis Kelleher (1945–1946)
• John Wright (1947–1950), appointed Bishop of Worcester, then Bishop of Pittsburgh, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy (elevated to Cardinal in 1969)
• Thomas Francis Markham (1950–1952)
• Eric Francis MacKenzie (1950–1969)
• Jeremiah Francis Minihan (1954–1973)
• Thomas Joseph Riley (1959–1976)
• Daniel A. Cronin (1968–1970), appointed Bishop of Fall River and later Archbishop of Hartford
• Joseph Francis Maguire (1971–1976), appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Springfield in Massachusetts and subsequently succeeded to that see
• Lawrence Joseph Riley (1971–1990)
• Joseph John Ruocco (1974–1980)
• Thomas Vose Daily (1974–1984), appointed Bishop of Palm Beach and later Bishop of Brooklyn
• John Joseph Mulcahy (1974–1992)
• John Michael D'Arcy (1975–1985), appointed Bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend
• Daniel Anthony Hart (1976–1995), appointed Bishop of Norwich
• Alfred C. Hughes (1981–1993), appointed Bishop of Baton Rouge and later Archbishop of New Orleans
• Robert J. Banks (1985–1990), appointed Bishop of Green Bay
• Roberto Octavio González Nieves (1988–1995), appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Corpus Christi and subsequently succeeded to that see, and later Archbishop of San Juan in Puerto Rico
• John R. McNamara (1992–1999)
• John P. Boles (1992–2006)
• John Brendan McCormack (1995–1998), appointed Bishop of Manchester
• William F. Murphy (1995–2001), appointed Bishop of Rockville Centre
• Francis Xavier Irwin (1996–2009)
• Emilio S. Allué (1996–2010)
• Richard Joseph Malone (2000–2004), appointed Bishop of Portland and later Bishop of Buffalo
• Richard Lennon (2001–2006), appointed Bishop of Cleveland
• Walter James Edyvean (2001–2014)
• John Anthony Dooher (2006–2018)
• Arthur L. Kennedy (2010–2017)
• Robert P. Deeley (2012–2013), appointed Bishop of Portland

Other archdiocesan priests who became bishops

• William Barber Tyler, appointed Bishop of Hartford in 1843
• Patrick Thomas O'Reilly, appointed Bishop of Springfield in Massachusetts in 1870
• James Augustine Healy, appointed Bishop of Portland in 1875
• Lawrence Stephen McMahon (priest here, 1860–1872), appointed Bishop of Hartford in 1879
• Matthew Harkins, appointed Bishop of Providence in 1887
• Edward Patrick Allen, appointed Bishop of Mobile in 1897
• Louis Sebastian Walsh, appointed Bishop of Portland in 1906
• John Joseph Nilan, appointed Bishop of Hartford in 1910
• James Anthony Walsh, elected Superior General of Maryknoll and consecrated Titular Bishop in 1933
• Edward Francis Ryan, appointed Bishop of Burlington in 1944
• John Joseph Glynn, appointed Auxiliary Bishop for the Military Services, USA in 1991
• Richard Joseph Malone, appointed Bishop of Portland in 2002 and later Bishop of Buffalo^[18] in 2012
• Christopher J. Coyne, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Indianapolis in 2011 and later Bishop of Burlington
• Paul Fitzpatrick Russell,^[19] appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Turkey and Turkmenistan and Titular Archbishop in 2016

Superintendents

• Albert W. Low (1961–1972)^[23]
• Bartholomew Varden (1972–1975)^[23][24]
• Eugene F. Sullivan (1978–1984)^[25][26]
• Kathleen Carr (1990–2006)^[27]
• Mary Grassa O'Neill (2008–2014)^[28]
• Mary E. Moran (2013–2014)^[28]
• Kathleen Powers Mears (2014–2019)^[20][28]
• Thomas W. Carroll (2019–present)^[29]

Colleges and universities

• Boston College, Chestnut Hill
• Emmanuel College, Boston
• Merrimack College, North Andover
• Regis College, Weston

Former colleges

• Marian Court College, Swampscott

Primary and secondary schools