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Diocese of Buffalo Dioecesis Buffalensis
Location
Country	United States
Territory	Western New York (Counties of Erie, Niagara, Genesee, Orleans, Chautauqua, Wyoming, Cattauraugus, and Allegany, New York)
Ecclesiastical province	Archdiocese of New York
Headquarters	795 Main Street Buffalo, New York 14203
Statistics
Area	16,511 km2 (6,375 sq mi)
Population - Total - Catholics	(as of 2012) 1,632,000 721,000 (44.2%)
Parishes	164
Information
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Rite	Roman Rite
Established	April 23, 1847; 171 years ago (1847-04-23)
Cathedral	St. Joseph Cathedral
Patron saint	St. Joseph
Current leadership
Pope	Francis
Bishop	Richard Joseph Malone
Metropolitan Archbishop	Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan Archbishop of New York
Auxiliary Bishops	Edward M. Grosz
Emeritus Bishops	Edward U. Kmiec Bishop emeritus of Buffalo
Map
Website
buffalodiocese.org

St. Joseph Cathedral, Buffalo, New York

St. Joseph Church, Gowanda, New York, 2007

Religious Artifact, St. Columban Retreat Center, Derby, New York, 1998

The Diocese of Buffalo is a Roman Catholic diocese headquartered in Buffalo, New York, United States. It is included in the province of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, in the Roman Rite. The Buffalo Diocese includes eight counties in Western New York State. The Catholic population is nearly 700,000. The Diocese is divided into more than 150 parishes, which also include churches, schools, convents, seminaries, hospitals, and colleges. The Buffalo Diocese was established in 1847. From the Buffalo Diocese, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester was created in 1868. The Most Reverend Richard Joseph Malone became the 14th bishop of the Buffalo Diocese, August 10, 2012.

Range and population

The Diocese covers 6,455 square miles (16,720 km²) throughout the eight counties of Western New York; and has a Catholic population of 690,000.^[1] In the Diocese are 166 parishes, 15 high schools, 52 elementary schools, seven colleges and universities, one seminary, convents, and four hospitals.^[2]

History

Establishment

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo was established April 23, 1847. It was set apart from the great Diocese of New York and the See located at Buffalo on Lake Erie, the territory comprising nearly one-third of the State of New York.

Redistricting

In 1868, the Diocese of Rochester was formed from the eastern counties of the territory of the Diocese of Buffalo. In 1896, after Bishop Stephen Vincent Ryan's death, four more counties, including Steuben, Schuyler, Chemung, and Tioga, were taken from the Diocese of Buffalo and added to the Rochester jurisdiction.

Reports of sex abuse

On September 12, 2018, leaked church records showed that there were 106 clergy in the Diocese of Buffalo who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children, far more than a list of 42 which had been released by the Diocese in March of the year.^[3] Numerous former Bishops and current Bishop Richard J. Malone, have been accused of shielding some of these "predator priests," as well as at least one nun, from potential prosecution and transferring some to other parishes to avoid scrutiny.^[4][5] Malone, who once served as an Auxiliary Bishop to the Archdiocese of Boston under the notorious Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law,^[6] was also revealed in August 2018 to have returned at least one "predator priest" to active ministry.^[7] A few clergy on the list who were still active in ministry have been suspended.^[8][9][10] On September 28, Malone named Steven L. Halter, a former agent in the FBI's Buffalo Division who took part in the investigations of the 9/11 World Trade Center and USS Cole attacks committed by the Islamic terrorist organization Al Qaeda and who served as senior accounting officer at Empire of America Federal Savings Bank, Buffalo beforehand, director of the Diocese's newly created Office of Personal Responsibility, which handles sex abuse complaints in the Diocese.^[11][12]

Territories

The Diocese of Buffalo includes the following eight counties in Western New York State:^[1]

Bishops

The lists of bishops and auxiliary bishops of the diocese and their years of service, followed by other priests of this diocese who became bishops:

Bishops of Buffalo

1. 
   John Timon, C.M. (1847 - 1867)


2. 
   Stephen V. Ryan, C.M. (1868 - 1896)


3. 
   James Edward Quigley (1896 - 1903), appointed Archbishop of Chicago
   


4. 
   Charles H. Colton (1903 - 1915)


5. 
   Dennis Joseph Dougherty (1915 - 1918), appointed Archbishop of Philadelphia (elevated to Cardinal in 1921)


6. 
   William Turner (1919 - 1936)


7. 
   John Aloysius Duffy (1937 - 1944)


8. 
   John Francis O'Hara, C.S.C. (1945 - 1951), appointed Archbishop of Philadelphia (elevated to Cardinal in 1958)


9. 
   Joseph Aloysius Burke (1952 - 1962)


10. 
    James Aloysius McNulty (1963 - 1972)


11. 
    Edward Dennis Head (1973 - 1995)


12. 
    Henry Joseph Mansell (1995 - 2003), appointed Archbishop of Hartford
    


13. 
    Edward Urban Kmiec (2004 - 2012)


14. 
    Richard Joseph Malone (2012–Present)^[13]

Auxiliary Bishops

• Joseph Aloysius Burke (1943-1952), appointed Bishop of Buffalo


• 
  Leo Richard Smith (1952-1963), appointed Bishop of Ogdensburg
  


• 
  Pius Anthony Benincasa (1964-1986)


• 
  Stanislaus Joseph Brzana (1964-1968), appointed Bishop of Ogdensburg
  


• 
  Bernard Joseph McLaughlin (1969-1988)


• 
  Donald Walter Trautman (1985-1990), appointed Bishop of Erie
  


• 
  Edward M. Grosz (1990–present)

Other priests of this diocese who became bishops

• 
  Francis Xavier Krautbauer, appointed Bishop of Green Bay
  


• 
  Thomas J. Walsh, appointed Bishop of Green Bay and later Bishop and Archbishop of Newark
  


• 
  Edmund F. Gibbons, appointed Bishop of Albany
  


• 
  John Joseph McMahon, appointed Bishop of Trenton
  


• 
  James Johnston Navagh, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Raleigh and later Bishop of Ogdensburg and Bishop of Paterson
  


• 
  Celestine Joseph Damiano, appointed Apostolic Delegate to South Africa and Titular Archbishop and later Bishop of Camden
  


• 
  John Joseph Fitzpatrick, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Miami and later Bishop of Brownsville
  

Major ministries

Hospitals and affiliates

Seminaries

• Christ the King Seminary, East Aurora^[2]

Convents

• Convent of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, Hamburg, New York^[19]


• 
  Villa Maria Motherhouse Complex, also known as the Felician Sisters Immaculate Heart of Mary Convent Chapel and Convent, Cheektowaga, New York
  


• 
  Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity at Stella Niagara Education Park, Stella Niagara, Lewiston, New York
  

Colleges and universities

High schools

Elementary schools

School restructuring

In 2005, Bishop Edward Kmiec announced that the Diocese would begin a school restructuring effort as part of the "Journey of Faith and Grace Campaign."^[21] In 2007, 14 Catholic elementary schools in the Diocese closed. The closures, alphabetically by city, included Most Precious Blood, Angola; Genesee-Wyoming Catholic, Attica; St. Agnes, St. Bernard, and St. Rose of Lima, Buffalo; Infant of Prague, St. Josaphat, Kolbe Catholic, Resurrection, and St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Cheektowaga; St. Barnabas, Depew; St. Hyacinth, Dunkirk; Blessed Sacrament, Kenmore; and St. Edmund, Tonawanda. The school closures caused job losses to 158 full-time and 49 part-time employees. More than 1,410 students were negatively affected by the school closures in 2007, and were required to enroll in other educational programs outside of these schools.^[22] In the five years immediately preceding the school closures, many families had already begun removing their children from Catholic schools in the diocese due to the instability of the schools, and concerns about not desiring their children to be enrolled in schools in which there was little or no future.

Regarding the 14 school closures in 2007, Bishop Kmiec stated in a February 2007 article written by Mark Ciemcioch in the Western New York Catholic:

This restructuring is necessary to respond to changing demographics, population and economic realities in Western New York; ... this is the most difficult decision I've ever made [while] being a bishop for 24 years.^[22]

While the average cost of teaching one student in the 14 schools in 2007 was $4,738, the average tuition cost for the student was $1,525. Therefore, the debt of those schools' parishes averaged $224,160, and totaled more than $3.3 million altogether. Secretary of the Department of Catholic Education Denise McKenzie stated that the deficit can, therefore, lead to a significant deficit in the schools and associated parishes even prior to the beginning of each school year. The Diocese of Buffalo contributed millions of dollars to support schools whose parishes used up monies to subsidize their schools. In early 2007 alone, the Diocese was operating with a $2.1 million deficit, in part, due to the subsidies provided to schools and parishes.^[22][23]

Cheektowaga, the area hardest-hit by the school closures with five schools lost in 2007, experienced great demographic changes in recent years. The area was once heavily Catholic, though the majority of the population of older adults has been replaced by those who are younger and non-Catholic. Younger couples have moved to the area, purchasing starter homes, and have moved out of the area when they begin having children, causing in decline in enrollments in the city's Catholic schools, particularly in kindergarten classes. The dramatic change has resulted in drastically reduced enrollments, for example in the Infant of Prague School in 1960 that had 1,120 students, and had only 117 enrolled students in 2007. St. Barnabas School in Depew – one of the schools that closed in 2007 – had only 57 students enrolled that year, making it less than minimally viable per Msgr. John Madsen.^[22][24]

References

External links

• Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo Official Site

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

• 
   Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Buffalo". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  

Coordinates: 42°54′17″N 78°50′58″W / 42.90472°N 78.84944°W / 42.90472; -78.84944