Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington
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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the eastern United States and is comprised of the entire state of Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It is led by a prelate bishop who serves as pastor of the motherchurch, Cathedral of Saint Peter in the City of Wilmington.
The first Roman Catholic mission in Delaware was established in 1804 by Rev. Patrick Kenney on the site of the Coffee Run Cemetery in Mill Creek, Delaware. The mission appears on the National Register of Historic Places.[1] The diocese was canonically erected on March 3, 1868 by Pope Pius IX. It took its territories from the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the then Diocese of Philadelphia, and also received the 2 eastern-shore counties of Virginia, thus extending all the way down the Delmarva Peninsula. The Virginia part was returned to the Diocese of Richmond in 1974, leaving the Diocese of Wilmington with all of Delaware and the 9 eastern-shore counties of Maryland.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Tangel, Andrew. "Death knell may sound for historic farm buildings", The News Journal, 1 December 2005, pp. B1–B2. Retrieved on June 8, 2006. Note: the title of the on-line article differs from the title of the article as it appeared in print
