Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark

During the 17th century, the British government divided present day New Jersey into separate provinces of East Jersey and West Jersey. East Jersey, which covered area belonging to the present Archdiocese of Newark, was hostile toward Catholics. The first priests to venture into East Jersey were Harvey and Gage, the chaplains of the Catholic governor of New York, Thomas Dongan. Starting in 1672, the priests made a few trips to Woodbridge and Elizabethtown to the few Catholics there. Some of these early Catholics were French immigrants who were employed at salt works.[5]

However, in 1674, William Douglass was arrested in Elizabethtown and banished from East Jersey because he was a Catholic. In 1668, he had won a seat in the East Jersey provincial assembly, but was denied his seat due to his religion.[5] East Jersey in 1698 granted religious toleration to all Christian faiths except Catholicism. The British Government combined East Jersey and West Jersey in 1702 into the Province of New Jersey.

During the 18th century, Robert Harding and Ferdinand Farmer from Philadelphia traveled across the Province of New Jersey, ministering to Catholics at Mount Hope, Macopin, Basking Ridge, Trenton and Ringwood. The settlement of Macopin was founded by German Catholics sometime during this period.[6]

The French envoy François Barbé-Marbois, writing from Philadelphia in 1785, estimated the Catholic population in the new States of New York and New Jersey at approximately 1700, with over half of them living in New Jersey. Many French refugees from the Haitian Revolution had settled in Elizabeth. Vianney, Tissorant, and Malou traveled to New Jersey from St. Peter's Parish in New York City to provide ministry. The opening of mines, furnaces, glass works, and other industries attracted more Catholic immigrants to New Jersey.[6]

On November 6, 1789, Pope Pius VI elevated the Apostolic Prefecture of the United States to the new Diocese of Baltimore, including all of the new United States.[7] On April 8, 1808, Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Philadelphia and the Diocese of New York, taking their territory from the Diocese of Baltimore.

• Sussex, Bergen, Morris, Essex, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth counties in New Jersey became part of the Diocese of New York
• The rest of New Jersey became part of the Diocese of Philadelphia.[6]

St. John's Parish, founded in 1826, was the first parish in Newark.[8] In Jersey City, Saint Peter's Church was dedicated in 1831. Saint Mary of the Assumption Church, the first parish in Elizabeth, was started in 1844. Our Lady of Grace Parish was started in Hoboken in 1851.[9]

In 1853, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Newark, taking all of New Jersey from the Dioceses of New York and Philadelphia.[10] The pope named Reverend James Bayley as the first bishop of Newark.[11]

Having limited funds to operated the diocese, Bayley appealed to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Lyon, France for assistance in 1854.[12] The Society gave him approximately 19,000 francs.[13] He also received material assistance from the Leopoldine Society in Vienna. In 1855, Bayley estimated the number of Catholics in the diocese at 40,000, mainly Irish and German.[12][13]

In 1856, Bayley opened Chegary Academy in Madison.[14] The school moved in 1860 to South Orange, where it was incorporated in 1861 as Seton Hall College. The college also had a seminary.[15] In 1857, a group of Benedictine Sisters arrived from Pennsylvania to establish schools in the diocese. The next year, Bayley sent five women to train with the Sisters of Charity. In 1872, Bayley became archbishop of Baltimore.

To replace Bayley, Reverend Michael Corrigan of Newark became the second bishop of Newark, appointed by Pius IX in 1873.[16] At that time, Catholic boys sent to state institutions were unable to attend mass. Corrigan offered clergy to provide that service, but the State of New Jersey refused. In response, he established the Catholic Protectory in Denville as an alternative to the state institutions, where Catholic boys were taught skills and trades. Corrigan also established a House of the Good Shepherd for girls in 1875 in Newark. In 1880, a group of Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration arrived in Newark from France.[17] Corrigan became coadjutor archbishop for New York in 1880.

The next bishop of Newark was Reverend Winand Wigger of Newark, named by Pope Leo XIII in 1881.[18] That same year, the pope erected the Diocese of Trenton, taking the southern portion of New Jersey from the Diocese of Newark.[19] Shortly after his installation, Wigger remarked "In the Church of God there is no distinction of race, color or tongue."[20] At the time of his consecration as a bishop, the diocese had 121 priests, 83 churches, 18,396 students enrolled in diocesan schools, and a Catholic population of 145,000.[21]

After surveying the church property in the diocese, Wigger negotiated a $2 million loan to cover the mortgages on many churches.[21] In 1883, he moved the Catholic Protectory from Danville to Mount Arlington and established the Sacred Heart Union to aid in its maintenance.[6]Wigger was fiercely hostile to the sale of alcohol; in 1884, he ordered his priests to deny the last rites of the Church to anyone who sold alcohol to minors or those with alcohol abuse problems. The brewers in the diocese were generally German and the saloon keepers predominantly Irish, but some viewed Wigger's hostility to alcoholic beverages as having an anti-Irish bias.[22]

Wigger also came in conflict with German Catholics who were attracted to non-Catholic societies and religions. He also became involved in the controversy stirred by the German Peter Cahensly over the alleged bias of Irish clergy in America against German Catholics. Wigger created German parishes, with their own schools for the preservation of German culture. Wigger held the fifth diocesan synod in November 1886, which enacted strict regulations on Catholic funerals and attendance at parochial and public schools.[6] He even threatened to excommunicate Catholic parents who sent their children to public schools. Wigger unsuccessfully attempted to introduce state legislation to secure financial aid from the state for Catholic schools.[23][20] In June 1899, Wigger laid the cornerstone for Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Newark.[6] [20]Wigger died in 1901. By the time of his death, the diocese had 256 priests, 153 churches, 34,817 students, and 300,000 Catholics[21]

In 1901, Monsignor John J. O'Connor of Newark was appointed the fourth bishop of Newark by Pope Leo XIII.[24] During his tenure, the Catholic population of the diocese more than doubled, standing at over 683,000 by the time of his death.[25] He increased the number of churches from 114 to 273, the number of priests from 265 to 712, and the number of Catholic school students from 35,330 to 82,462.[26] O'Connor also established over 45 missions and chapels. He continued to oversee the construction of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.[25] In 1903, O'Connor condemned the oath of the International Typographical Union and forbade Catholics from taking it, saying, "A man owes his allegiance first to God.[27] In 1926, fear of automobile crashes prompted O'Connor to prohibit diocesan priests from owning or driving motor vehicles, except in rural parishes.[25] O'Connor died in 1927.

The next bishop of Newark was Bishop Thomas Walsh from the Diocese of Trenton, appointed by Pope Pius XI in 1928.[28] The following year, Walsh established the Newark Mount Carmel Guild to help those on public assistance. In 1930, the guild set up a soup kitchen in the basement of St. Patrick's Pro-Cathedral.[29] In 1930, Walsh acquired the "Tower Hill", the estate of Louis C. Gillespie, founder of L.C. Gillespie & Sons. He invited the Religious Teachers Filippini to move to the diocese. The sisters relocated their motherhouse to Morristown and named it Villa Walsh. They opened a girls school, Villa Walsh Academy.[30] In 1931, Walsh opened a new chancery building in Newark and in 1933 established Saint Gertrude Cemetery in Colonia.[31] Walsh raised $2 million in 25 days to build Immaculate Conception Seminary in 1936, and encouraged Seton Hall Preparatory School and Seton Hall College to seek state accreditation.[32]

In December 1937, Pius XI took the following actions:

• Erected the Diocese of Paterson, taking Morris, Sussex, and Passaic Counties from the Diocese of Newark
• Elevated the Diocese of Newark to the Archdiocese of Newark.[33] The Dioceses of Camden, Paterson, and Trenton became suffragan sees of the new archdiocese.
• Named Walsh as the first archbishop of Newark

After Walsh died in 1952, Pope Pius XII that same year named Bishop Thomas Boland from the Diocese of Paterson as the second archbishop of Newark.[34] Boland founded St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale,[35] Immaculate Heart Academy in Washington Township, and Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus in the 1960s. In January 1969, a group of 20 priests of the archdiocese accused Boland of adopting a "white racist attitude" toward African Americans".[36] In response, Boland issued a seven-page report that outlined the programs the archdiocese had taken in regard to African-Americans.[37] Boland retired in 1974.

Bishop Peter Gerety from the Diocese of Portland was the third archbishop of Newark, appointed by Pope Paul VI in 1974.[38] During his 12-year tenure in Newark, Gerety created the Office of Pastoral Renewal and began a ministry to divorced Catholics.[39] The Office of Pastoral Renewal evolved into RENEW International, an organization based in Plainfield that provides resources for small Christian communities in the United States, Canada and Third World countries. Gerety established the Archbishop's Annual Appeal in 1975, and supported the charismatic and ecumenical movements.[39] He also established the Archbishop Gerety Fund for Ecclesiastical History to advance studies in ecclesiastical history, especially the history of Catholicism in the United States.[40]

In November 1981, Pope John Paul II erected the Diocese of Metuchen, designating it as an suffragan see of the Archdiocese of Newark.[41] In 1984, Gerety ordered People of Hope, a charismatic Catholic community in the archdiocese, to sever its relationship with Sword of the Spirit, a nationwide conference of charismatic groups, citing its authoritarian practices. People of Hope said that they were not subject to Gerety's authority.[42]

Gerety retired in 1986. His replacement was Bishop Theodore McCarrick from the Diocese of Methuen, named by Pope John Paul II in 1986. During his tenure, McCarrick established the Office of Evangelization, ministries for Hispanics and victims of HIV/AIDS, and a drug prevention program.[43] He also promoted vocations, and ordained 200 priests for the archdiocese.[44] McCarrick became known as an advocate for social justice, once saying, "[T]he Church cannot be authentic unless it takes care of the poor, the newcomers, the needy."[44] He became archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington in 2000.

Archbishop McCarrick in June 2006

To replace McCarrick, John Paul II selected Bishop John J. Myers of the Diocese of Peoria in 2001.[45] Later that year, Myers banned eulogies at funeral masses in the archdiocese, saying that some eulogies were inappropriate and too long. After pushback from parishioners, he reversed himself.[46] In 2004, Myers criticized a group of law students at Seton Hall University for honoring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, objecting because she allegedly favored abortion rights for women.[47]

In September 2013, Pope Francis named Bishop Bernard Hebda as coadjutor archbishop of the archdiocese to assist Myers. In February 2014, The New York Times reported that Myers planned to retire to a 7,500-foot so-called "palace", expanded at his direction in Pittstown.[48] In June 2016, Francis named Hebda as the new archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.[49] The pope did not replace Hebda with another coadjutor.

When Myers retired in late 2016, Francis named Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin from the Archdiocese of Indianapolis to replace him.[50][51][52][53] Tobin welcomed a "pilgrimage" of gay and lesbian Catholics and their families to Sacred Heart Cathedral in 2017. In an interview before the mass, Tobin said,

"The word I use is 'welcome'. These are people that have not felt welcome in other places. My prayer for them is that they do. Today in the Catholic Church, we read a passage that says you have to be able to give a reason for your hope. And I'm praying that this pilgrimage for them, and really for the whole Church, is a reason for hope."[54]

In September 2021, the archdiocese broke ground on a new St. Lucy's Homeless Housing and Support Services Site in Jersey City. The project was designed to provide emergency and transitional housing, along with supportive services, for homeless individuals and families.[55]

As of 2023, Tobin is the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Newark.

In 2001, Michael Fugee, an archdiocese priest at St. Elizabeth's Parish in Wyckoff, was accused of molesting a 14-year-old boy on multiple occasions in the 1990s. Fugee confessed to police in 2001 to fondling a teenage boy. However, he later recanted his confession, saying he had been pressured by investigators.[56] Fugee was tried and convicted in 2003 of criminal sexual contact, but his conviction was overturned in 2006 by an appellate court.[57] To avoid a retrial, Fugee signed an agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office in 2007. He agreed to a lifetime ban working in contact with children. The archdiocese co-signed the agreement, promising it would supervise Fugee.[58]

In September 2009, the archdiocese assigned Fugee as chaplain at Saint Michael's Medical Center in Newark. However, after learning about Fugee's record, Saint Michael's demanded that the archdiocese remove him. The archdiocese later admitted that they never informed the hospital about Fugee's past, only the head of the archdiocese chaplain's office.[57] In 2013, Fugee was discovered working in youth ministry at St. Mary's Parish in Colts Neck, a parish in the Diocese of Trenton. Myers said he was unaware of Fugee's youth work and immediately suspended him.[59][60] There were calls for Myers to resign, including from members of the New Jersey State Legislature, because of his handling of the Fugee case.[61] In early 2014, the Bergen County prosecutors agreed to not press new charges against Fugee if the Vatican laicized him, which happened in May 2014.[58]

In August 2016, Kevin Gugliotta, an archdiocesan priest, was arrested for possession of child pornography after detectives traced an upload he made of these materials to a chat room. Soon after his arrest, the archdiocese removed Gugliotta from public ministry. He pleaded guilty and in August 2017 was sentenced to an 11-year prison sentence. Gugliotta later told probation officers that he uploaded the pornography because he was angry with God for causing him to lose at poker tournaments.[62]

In 2018, Desmond Rossi, a priest with the Diocese of Albany, revealed that he had been sexually assaulted when he was a seminarian. Rossi said he attacked by two other seminarians in a Newark church in 1988. He filed a complaint with the Archdiocese of Newark in 2003. After an investigation, the archdiocese said that Rossi's complaint was credible, but could not be proven; they took no further action.[63]

In March 2019, a New Jersey man sued the archdiocese, claiming that he had been sexually abused by Gugliotta at St. Bartholomew the Apostle Parish in Scotch Plains. The plaintiff noted that a man complained to the archdiocese about Gugliotta in 2003, saying that he had sexually abused him as a boy when Gugliotta was a Boy Scout leader in the 1980s. However, since the alleged crime happened before Gugliotta entered the priesthood, the archdiocese allowed him to stay in ministry.[64][65]

In an August 2018 article, the Catholic News Agency said that six anonymous priests made the following claims during an interview about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and several priests in the archdiocese;

• That the archdiocese in 2014 removed Mark O'Malley as rector of St. Andrew's Hall Seminary after he secretly hid a camera in a priest's bedroom[66]
• That McCarrick would invite young men to stay at his house in Sea Girt on the Jersey Shore, or to spend the night in the cathedral rectory in Newark
• That some priests in the archdiocese were involved in gay relationships with each other

In response to the 2018 Catholic News Agency article, the archdiocese stated that neither the six priests nor anyone else "has ever spoken to Cardinal Tobin about a 'gay sub-culture' in the Archdiocese of Newark."[66] Regarding O'Malley, the archdiocese stated that he had been "going through a personal crisis and received therapy after the incident at the seminary. Although he is not serving as a pastor, he has been deemed fit for priestly ministry and hopes to serve as a hospital chaplain."[66][67]

In July 2018, The New York Times reported that Robert Ciolek, a former priest, had received an $80,000 settlement in 2004 from the archdiocese and two other New Jersey dioceses. Ciolek had accused McCarrick of sexually abusing him at the Sea Girt house. In 2007, a second victim of sexual abuse at Sea Girt, a priest, had received a $100,000 settlement from the archdiocese.[68] In September 2018, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops announced that its investigation of McCarrick would include his tenure as archbishop of Newark.[69]

In February 2019, the archdiocese released a list of 63 clergy with credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors since 1940. Cardinal Tobin also acknowledged that the alleged acts of abuse committed by the clergy listed were reported to law enforcement agencies.[70] By 2020, the names of 86 accused clergy who served in the archdiocese were made public.[71]

In December 2019, a new law went into effect in state of New Jersey that allowed some of McCarrick's alleged victims to file lawsuits against him and the archdiocese.[72] As of December 2019, eight lawsuits had been filed against the archdiocese.[73][74]

By February 2020, according to a New Jersey attorney, the five Catholic dioceses in the state had paid over $11 million to compensate 105 claims of sex abuse committed by clergy. Of these 105 claims, 98 were compensated through settlements.[75] America Magazine reported that the archdiocese and two other New Jersey dioceses had been making secret payments to victims of abuse by McCarrick since 2005.[76] In July 2020, Northjersey.com reported that nine new sex abuse lawsuits had been filed against the archdiocese. The new lawsuits contained allegations of abuse by four archdiocese priests and three members of religious orders.[77]

• In July 2020, a New Jersey man sued the diocese, stating that he had been sexually abused by McCarrick and three priests at the Sea Girt house in 1982 when he was 14. At that time, McCarrick was bishop of Methuen. The plaintiff said that the beach house was a common place for McCarrick and others to engage in “open and obvious criminal sexual conduct”. The lawsuit stated that boys staying at the house were paired with adult clergymen in the same bedrooms. The Diocese of Methuen bought the house in 1985, then sold it to the archdiocese in 1988.[78][79]
• In August 2020, two men sued the archdiocese and Paramus Catholic High School in Paramus. The men alleged that they had been sexually molested by hockey coach Bernard Garris at the school and during athletic trips between 1986 and 1988. The lawsuit alleged that the archdiocese, the school and McCarrick covered up the abuse after the plaintiffs reported it.[80] In October 2020, eight more former Paramus students filed similar lawsuits.[81]
• In December, 2020, it was revealed that the Archdiocese of Newark was among more than 230 sex abuse lawsuits filed within a period of one year against New Jersey Catholic dioceses.[82]
• Also in December 2020, three Michigan men sued the archdiocese, accusing Miroslaw Krol of sexually abusing them. Although a priest with the Archdiocese of Newark, Krol had been serving as chancellor of the Catholic Orchard Lake Schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit. The men, all school employees, said that Krol would sexually assault and constantly proposition them. When the men reported their allegations to the Orchard Lake board of trustees, they were fired.[83]

• In May 2021, a woman filed a $50 million lawsuit, claiming that Archbishop Gerety sexually abused her in a church rectory in 1976 when she was five years old.[84]
• In September 2021, four former Archdiocese of Newark priests were named in new sex abuse lawsuits.[85]
• In November 2021, Michael Reading, a former archdiocesan priest, accused McCarrick of sexually abusing him in 1986 during a stay at McCarrick's beach house. Reading also claimed that as a boy, he was sexually abused in 1978 by Edward Eilert, an archdiocesan priest.[86]

1. James Roosevelt Bayley (1853–1872), appointed Archbishop of Baltimore
2. Michael Corrigan (1873–1880), appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of New York and subsequently succeeded to that see
3. Winand Wigger (1881–1901)
4. John J. O'Connor (1901–1927)
5. Thomas J. Walsh (1928–1937), elevated to archbishop

1. Thomas J. Walsh (1937–1952)
2. Thomas Aloysius Boland (1953–1974)
3. Peter Leo Gerety (1974–1986)
4. Theodore Edgar McCarrick (1986–2000), appointed Archbishop of Washington[88]
5. John J. Myers (2001–2016)
   - Bernard Hebda (coadjutor archbishop 2013–2016; concurrently Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis 2015–2016), appointed Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis
6. Cardinal Joseph William Tobin (2017–present)

• Manuel Aurelio Cruz (2008–present)
• Elias R. Lorenzo (2020–present)
• Michael A. Saporito (2020–present)
• Gregory J. Studerus (2020–present)

• Thomas H. McLaughlin (1935–1937), appointed Bishop of Paterson
• William A. Griffin (1938–1940), appointed Bishop of Trenton
• Thomas Aloysius Boland (1940–1947), appointed Bishop of Paterson and later Archbishop of Newark
• Justin J. McCarthy (1954–1957), appointed Bishop of Camden
• Martin Walter Stanton (1957–1972)
• Joseph Arthur Costello (1963–1978)
• John Joseph Dougherty (1963–1982)
• Jerome Arthur Pechillo (1976–1991)
• Joseph Abel Francis (1976–1995)
• Robert Francis Garner (1976–1995)
• Dominic Anthony Marconi (1976–2002)
• David Arias Pérez (1983–2004)
• James T. McHugh (1987–1989), appointed Bishop of Camden and later Coadjutor Bishop and Bishop of Rockville Centre
• John Mortimer Smith (1988–1991), appointed Bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee and later Coadjutor Bishop and Bishop of Trenton[89]
• Michael Saltarelli (1990–1995), appointed Bishop of Wilmington
• Charles James McDonnell (1994–2004)
• Nicholas Anthony DiMarzio (1996–1999), appointed Bishop of Camden and later Bishop of Brooklyn
• Paul Gregory Bootkoski (1997–2002), appointed Bishop of Metuchen
• Arthur Serratelli (2000–2004), appointed Bishop of Paterson
• Edgar Moreira da Cunha (2003–2014), appointed Bishop of Fall River
• Gaetano Aldo Donato (2004–2015)
• John Walter Flesey (2004–2017)

• Robert Seton, appointed titular archbishop of Heliopolis in Phoenicia in 1903
• Peter Baldacchino, appointed auxiliary bishop of Miami in 2014, later became Bishop of Las Cruces

• Immaculate Conception (archdiocesan major seminary) at Seton Hall University – South Orange
• Saint Andrew's Hall college seminary at Seton Hall University – South Orange
• Redemptoris Mater Archdiocesan Missionary Seminary – Kearny

• Caldwell College – Caldwell
• Felician College – Rutherford
• Saint Peter's University – Jersey City
• Seton Hall University – South Orange

• Academy of the Holy Angels – Demarest
• Bergen Catholic High School – Oradell
• Don Bosco Preparatory High School – Ramsey
• Immaculate Conception High School – Lodi
• Immaculate Heart Academy – Washington Township
• Paramus Catholic High School – Paramus
• St. Joseph Regional High School – Montvale
• St. Mary High School – Rutherford

• Immaculate Conception High School – Montclair
• Lacordaire Academy – Upper Montclair
• Mount Saint Dominic Academy – Caldwell
• St. Benedict's Preparatory School – Newark
• St. Vincent Academy – Newark
• Seton Hall Preparatory School – West Orange

• Hudson Catholic Regional High School – Jersey City
• Kenmare High School – Jersey City
• St. Dominic Academy – Jersey City
• St. Peter's Preparatory School – Jersey City

* Alternative school financially independent of archdiocese.

• Mother Seton Regional High School – Clark
• Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child – Summit
• Oratory Preparatory School – Summit
• Roselle Catholic High School – Roselle
• Union Catholic Regional High School – Scotch Plains

• Benedictine Academy – Elizabeth (closed 2020)
• Christ the King Preparatory School – Newark (Closed 2020)
• Holy Family Academy – Bayonne (closed)
• Marist High School – Bayonne (closed 2020)
• Queen of Peace High School – North Arlington (closed 2017)
• St. Anthony High School – Jersey City (closed 2017)
• St. Mary of the Assumption High School – Elizabeth (closed 2019)