The Archdiocese of New York (Latin: Archidiœcesis Neo-Eboracensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the State of New York. It encompasses the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City and the counties of Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester to the north of the city. It does not include the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn or Queens, which are part of the Diocese of Brooklyn.

The Archdiocese of New York is the second-largest diocese in the United States by population, encompassing 296 parishes that serve around 2.8 million Catholics, in addition to hundreds of Catholic schools, hospitals and charities.^[3][4] The archdiocese also operates St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York. The archbishop is also the metropolitan of the larger Ecclesiastical Province of New York.

The Good Newsroom is the digital news outlet of the archdiocese and includes a website, social media channels, an app, and a weekly e-newsletter.^[5]

Reverend R. Luke Concanen was appointed the first bishop of what was then Diocese of New York in 1808. As of 2024, the current archbishop of New York is Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

The ordinary of the Archdiocese of New York is an archbishop whose cathedral is Cathedral of St. Patrick in Manhattan, New York. The archdiocese is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province of New York, which includes the following suffragan dioceses:

• Albany
• Brooklyn
• Buffalo
• Ogdensburg
• Rochester
• Rockville Centre
• Syracuse

The archdiocese includes all of New York State, except for Fishers Island, which is part of the Province of Hartford. As such, the metropolitan archbishop possesses certain limited authority over the suffragan sees of the province (see ecclesiastical province).

On November 26, 1784, Pope Pius VI erected the Apostolic Prefecture of United States of America, creating a separate jurisdiction for the new United States from the Catholic Church of the United Kingdom.^[6] That same year, the new State of New York repealed the Colonial-era law prohibiting Catholic priests from residing in New York.^[7]

With the anti-priest law repealed, the French counsel, Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, organized a group of laymen in 1785 to open St. Peter's Parish in Manhattan, the first Catholic parish in New York City. The congregation purchased land for a new church d from Trinity Church, supplement community donations with a gift of 1,000 silver pieces from King Charles III of Spain. The first St. Peter's Church was dedicated in 1787; its worshippers included Sister Elizabeth Ann Seton and the philanthropist Pierre Toussaint.^[8]

On November 6, 1789, Pius VI raised the Apostolic Prefecture of United States to the Diocese of Baltimore, headed by the first American bishop, John Carroll. For the next nine years, Carroll was in charge of the Catholic Church in New York State along with the rest of the nation.^[9][6]

On April 8, 1808, Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of New York and three other diocese, taking their territory from the Diocese of Baltimore. He simultaneously elevated the Diocese of Baltimore to a metropolitan archdiocese and assigned all four new sees as its suffragans. At the time it was formed the Diocese of New York included:

• all of the State of New York
• Sussex, Bergen, Morris, Essex, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth counties in northeastern New Jersey.^[10]

Pius VII appointed Monsignor R. Luke Concanen as the first bishop of New York. However, he was prevented from sailing from Italy to New York by a French blockade. On Carroll's recommendation, he appointed Reverend Anthony Kohlmann, rector of St. Peter's Parish, to administer the diocese as his vicar general. To relieve overcrowding at St. Peter's, Kohlman started construction in 1809 of the first Cathedral of St. Patrick in Lower Manhattan. He also established the New York Literary Institution, the first Catholic school in the new diocese.^[11] Concanen died in Italy in 1810, having never made it to the United States.^[12]

In 1840-1842 Bishop John J. Hughes led a political battle to secure funding for the Catholic schools. He rallied support from both the Tammany Hall Democrats, and the opposition Whig Party, whose leaders, especially Governor William H. Seward supported Hughes. He argued Catholics paid double for schools--they paid taxes to subsidize private schools they could not use and also paid for the parochial schools they did use. Catholics could not use Public School Society schools because they forced students to listen to readings from the Protestant King James Bible which were designed to undermine their Catholic faith. With the Maclay Act in 1842, the New York State legislature established the New York City Board of Education. It gave the city an elective Board of Education empowered to build and supervise schools and distribute the education fund. It provided that no money should go to the schools that taught religion, so Hughes lost his battle.^[13] Hughes turned inward: he founded an independent Catholic school system in the city. His new system included the first Catholic college in the Northeast, St. John's College, now Fordham University.^[14] By 1870 19 percent of the city's children were attending Catholic schools.^[15]

The difficulties faced by Catholics at the time included anti-Catholic bigotry in general and in the New York school system and a strong Nativist movement that failed to keep Catholics out of the country but warned that control by "the Papacy" was a threat to American republicanism.^[9]

On April 23, 1847, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Albany and Diocese of Buffalo, taking their initial territory from the Diocese of New York.^{[16][17][18][19]}

On July 19, 1850, the same pope elevated the Diocese of New York to an archdiocese.

On July 29, 1853, the same pope erected the Diocese of Newark, with territory taken from the Diocese of New York and the Diocese of Philadelphia, and the Diocese of Brooklyn, with territory taken from the Diocese of New York.^[20][21][22]

On February 16, 1872, the Diocese of Ogdensburg was established.

On July 25, 1885, the same pope annexed the territory of The Bahamas to the Archdiocese of New York, establishing their first permanent Catholic presence, due to their proximity to New York's busy port. The Archdiocese of New York constructed and administered churches and schools in the Bahamas until Pope Pius XI erected the Apostolic Prefecture of Bahama on March 21, 1929, enabled a transition. By 1932, The Bahamas were no longer under the spiritual jurisdiction of New York.^[23] This established the present territory of the Archdiocese of New York.

From 1919 to 1983, the Archbishops of New York held the collateral position of Apostolic Vicar of the Military Vicariate of the United States.^[20] Pope John Paul II terminated this arrangement, first by appointing Bishop John Joseph O'Connor as Archbishop of New York but as Apostolic Administrator of the Military Vicariate of the United States on 26 January 1984 to oversee the transition and, subsequently, by reconstituting the Military Vicariate of the United States as the present Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, with its own archbishop and its see relocated to Washington, DC on 21 July 1986.

In 2008, the Archdiocese of New York celebrated its bicentennial anniversary of its establishment as a diocese. To mark the occasion, Pope Benedict XVI visited the archdiocese from April 18 to April 20. During his visit, Benedict visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, The United Nations, Ground Zero, St. Joseph's Parish in Yorkville, St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers and celebrated a Mass at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx.

In 2009, Timothy Dolan was named the 10th Archbishop of New York. He was made a Cardinal in February 2012.

Since the start of the 21st century, The Archdiocese of New York, like other dioceses around the country and the world, has been dealing with a decline in priestly vocations. This has led to a number of parishes being closed and/or merged, and in some cases priests are being asked to take care of multiple parishes at once.^[24]

As of 2023, the Catholic population of the archdiocese was 2,642,740. These Catholics were served by 320 archdiocesan priests, 195 priests of religious orders, and 140 international priests. Also laboring in the diocese were 228 permanent deacons, and 443 men and women religious.^[25]

As of 2023, the archdiocese currently has around 60 men enrolled in its priestly formation program.

For comparison, in 1929, the Catholic population of the archdiocese was 1,273,291 persons. There were 1,314 clergy ministering in the archdiocese and 444 churches. There were also 170,348 children in Catholic educational and welfare institutions.^[26]

• January 4 – Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, native of New York
• January 5 – Memorial of Saint John Neumann, ordained a priest of New York
• March 17 – Solemnity of Saint Patrick, Patronal Feast of both the archdiocese and the cathedral
• April 8 – Anniversary of the establishment of the Diocese of New York (1808)
• July 14 – Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, born near Albany, New York, when it was part of the Diocese of New York
• September 5 – Memorial of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, who performed missionary work in the Bronx
• October 5 – Anniversary of the dedication of the current Cathedral of Saint Patrick (1910)
• November 13 – Memorial of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, missionary in New York

Below is a list of individuals who have led the Archdiocese of New York and its antecedent jurisdictions since its founding.^[27][28]

• Benedict Joseph Fenwick, appointed Bishop of Boston (1825)
• William Quarter, appointed the first Bishop of Chicago (1843)
• Andrew Byrne, appointed the first Bishop of Little Rock (1844)
• Bernard O'Reilly, appointed Bishop of Hartford (1850)
• Saint John Neumann, appointed Bishop of Philadelphia (1852)
• James Roosevelt Bayley, appointed the first bishop of Newark (1853), then Archbishop of Baltimore
• John Loughlin, appointed the first Bishop of Brooklyn (1853)
• David William Bacon, appointed the first bishop of Portland, Maine (1855)
• Francis Patrick McFarland, appointed Vicar Apostolic of Florida (1857; did not take effect) and Bishop of Hartford (1858)
• John J. Conroy, appointed Bishop of Albany (1865)
• William George McCloskey, appointed Bishop of Louisville (1868)
• Bernard John McQuaid, appointed the first Bishop of Rochester (1868)
• Francis McNeirny, appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Albany (1871), then Bishop of Albany
• William Hickley Gross, appointed Bishop of Savannah (1873), then Archbishop of Oregon City
• John Lancaster Spalding, appointed the first bishop of Peoria (1876)
• Michael J. O'Farrell, appointed the first Bishop of Trenton (1881)
• Henry P. Northrop, appointed Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina (1881) and Bishop of Charleston
• Charles Edward McDonnell, appointed Bishop of Brooklyn (1892)
• Henry Gabriels, Rector of St Joseph's Seminary in Troy, New York, appointed Bishop of Ogdensburg, New York (1892)
• Thomas O'Gorman, appointed Bishop of Sioux Falls (1896)
• Charles H. Colton, appointed Bishop of Buffalo (1903)
• Bonaventure Broderick, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Havana (1903)
• John T. McNicholas, appointed Bishop of Duluth (1918), then Archbishop of Cincinnati
• Francis Joseph Tief, appointed Bishop of Concordia, Kansas (1920)
• Daniel Joseph Curley, appointed Bishop of Syracuse (1923)
• John Joseph Mitty, appointed Bishop of Salt Lake City (1926), then Coadjutor Archbishop of San Francisco, then Archbishop of San Francisco
• Joseph Francis Rummel, appointed Bishop of Omaha (1928), then Archbishop of New Orleans
• James E. Kearney, appointed Bishop of Salt Lake City (1932), then Bishop of Rochester
• Bryan Joseph McEntegart, appointed Bishop of Ogdensburg (1943), later Bishop of Brooklyn (1957)
• William Scully, appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Albany (1945), then Bishop of Albany
• Patrick Aloysius O'Boyle, appointed Archbishop of Washington (1947) (Cardinal in 1967)
• Christopher Joseph Weldon, appointed Bishop of Springfield in Massachusetts (1950)
• Philip Joseph Furlong, appointed Auxiliary Bishop for the Military Services, USA (1956)
• Francis Frederick Reh, appointed Bishop of Charleston (1962), then Rector of the Pontifical North American College, then Bishop of Saginaw
• Thomas Andrew Donnellan, appointed Bishop of Ogdensburg (1964), then Archbishop of Atlanta
• Charles Borromeo McLaughlin, appointed auxiliary bishop of Raleigh (1964), then the first bishop of St. Petersburg
• Thomas C. Kelly, appointed auxiliary bishop of Washington (1977), then Archbishop of Louisville
• Joseph Thomas Dimino, appointed auxiliary bishop for the Military Services, USA (1983), then Archbishop for the Military Services, USA
• Roberto González Nieves, appointed auxiliary bishop of Boston (1988), Bishop of Corpus Christi, then Archbishop of San Juan
• Rrok Kola Mirdita, appointed Archbishop of Tiranë-Durrës, Albania (1993)
• Emilio S. Allué, appointed auxiliary bishop of Boston (1996)
• Charles Daniel Balvo, appointed an apostolic nuncio and titular archbishop (2005)
• Charles John Brown, appointed an apostolic nuncio and titular archbishop (2011)
• William James Muhm, appointed auxiliary bishop for the Military Services, USA (2019)

The archdiocesan school system is headquartered in the New York Catholic Center Terrence Cardinal Cooke Building in Midtown Manhattan.^[31]

• Elizabeth Ann Seton – founder of American branch of Sisters of Charity; first canonized saint from New York; first native-born U.S. citizen canonized a saint
• Frances Xavier Cabrini – founder of Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; first U.S. citizen canonized a saint
• Isaac Jogues – Jesuit missionary, active in northern New York State before establishment of Diocese of New York
• John Nepomucene Neumann – New York diocesan priest, later a Redemptorist; fourth Bishop of Philadelphia; first U.S. bishop canonized; founder of first Catholic diocesan school system in the U.S.
• Kateri Tekakwitha – first Native American (U.S.) canonized a saint
• Fulton Sheen – archbishop; prominent radio and television preacher
• Pierre Toussaint – Former enslaved person in Haiti; New York businessman and philanthropist
• Isaac Hecker – Redemptorist priest; founder of Paulist Fathers
• Vincent Capodanno – Maryknoll missionary; U.S. Navy chaplain; Vietnam War hero; Medal of Honor recipient
• Dorothy Day – social activist and radical; co-founder of Catholic Worker movement and newspaper
• Terence Cooke – archbishop and cardinal; founder of many charitable programs
• Rose Hawthorne Lathrop – founder of Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, as Mother Mary Alphonsa

• St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine, at 701 Fort Washington Avenue in Hudson Heights, Manhattan, with a facade on Cabrini Boulevard, next to the former Mother Cabrini High School.
• Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton, in the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, at 7 State Street in the Financial District, Manhattan.
• National Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, at 70 Carmelite Drive in Middletown, Orange County, New York.^[32]
• Salesian National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, 174 Filors Lane, Stony Point, New York.^[33]

In August 2018, the archdiocese reported that between 2016 and 2018, its Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program paid nearly $60 million to 278 victims of sex abuse by clergy.^[34] On September 26, 2018, it was reported that the Archdiocese of New York, and the three other dioceses where Theodore McCarrick served as a bishop, were facing an investigation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for McCarrick's alleged sex abuse.^[35] On January 28, 2019, the New York state Assembly and Senate passed a law allowing prosecutors to bring criminal charges until a victim turned 28, and permitting victims to sue until age 55.^[36] New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law on February 14, 2019.^[37]

On April 26, 2019, the Archdiocese released a list of 120 Catholic clergy accused of committing acts of sexual abuse.^[38] Some of those on the list, which includes both male and female church workers, have been convicted and many are deceased.^[39] The list was accompanied by a letter of apology from Cardinal Dolan, who asked for forgiveness.^[40]

On August 14, 2019, James Grien, who has accused McCarrick of sexually abusing him when McCarrick was an auxiliary bishop of New York (1977-1981), filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New York.^[41][42] In his lawsuit, Grien also stated that McCarrick's status as a friend of his family allowed the former New York Auxiliary Bishop to continue to visit and sexually abuse him after being transferred to New Jersey's Diocese of Metuchen in 1981 and later the Archdiocese of Newark in 1986.^[43]

On September 30, 2019, Dolan released a report written by Barbara S. Jones, a former judge and prosecutor.^[44][45] Her report stated, among other things, that the Archdiocese had completed the process of removing all of its remaining accused clergy from active ministry.^[46][47][45] In the same report, Jones recommended that the Archdiocese should also hire a sex abuse "czar" to vet all complaints.^[48][47][45] Jones, who was commissioned by Dolan in 2018 to conduct the review of the church's handling of abuse allegations,^[49] also recommended hiring "a compliance officer for the Office of Priest Personnel to monitor its functions and oversee the new document management system".^[48] Dolan also backed the Jones Report and stated at a press conference that the archdiocese was expanding its sex abuse policy as well.^[45]

On October 10, 2019, it was announced that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Bronx-based Auxiliary Bishop John Jenik following an accusation of sex abuse.^[50] Appointed Auxiliary Bishop by Pope Francis in 2014, Jenik also served as vicar for the Northwest Bronx, appointed by Dolan's predecessor Edward Egan in 2006.^[51] Jenik, who submitted his resignation letter upon turning 75 in March 2019,^[50] had stepped out of public ministry in October 2018 after the allegation surfaced.^[52]

On May 8, 2020, Cuomo extended the 2019 New York Child Victim Act's statewide statute of limitations deadline to file sex abuse lawsuits, which was originally set for August 14, 2020, to January 14, 2021.^[53]

On July 27, 2020, it was revealed that a Catholic priest who served the Archdiocese of New York in upstate New York's Orange County was named in a new sex abuse lawsuit.^[54] In the lawsuit, eight men alleged that longtime Orange County priest George Boxelaar, who died in 1990, sexually abused them when they were children (1970s-80s), adding their claims to those of at least three other accusers of the late Boxelaar who have sued.^[54] These three other accusers had filed lawsuits through the state Supreme Court in Orange County in late 2019, with one also naming the Archdiocese of New York and two churches - Holy Cross in Wawaynda and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Middletown - as defendants.^[55] In addition to these new lawsuits, a Scarsdale Catholic school teacher identified as Edwin Gaylor also confessed to committing acts of sex abuse.^[56]

On December 3, 2020, New York City priest Fr. George Rutler, the prestigious pastor of the Church of St. Michael in Manhattan was accused by a female security guard, who worked at Rutler's parish for two shifts, of watching pornography and "aggressively" groping her.^[57] Rutler, considered a popular conservative priest, has made numerous appearances on EWTN and has written 30 books.^[58] Following the accusations, he maintained his innocence but offered to temporarily step down as pastor during the subsequent investigation. In May 2021, the District Attorney of Manhattan declined to bring charges, dismissing the accusations and allegedly calling them "baseless."^[59]

• Irish Americans in New York City
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn
• History of education in New York City
• History of the Catholic Church in the United States

• Category:People of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York
• John P. Chidwick – New York diocesan priest; chaplain on USS Maine
• Sisters of Life – founded in 1991 by John Joseph O'Connor, Cardinal Archbishop of New York