Roman Catholic Diocese of Allentown

The Diocese of Allentown () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The mother church of the Diocese of Allentown is the Cathedral Church of Saint Catharine of Siena Allentown.  As of 2023, the bishop of Allentown is Alfred A. Schlert.

Statistics

The Diocese of Allentown covers Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton and Schuylkill counties. It has a Catholic population of 258,997 as of 2015, approximately 20.4% of the total population. The diocese maintains 80 parishes, 30 Catholic elementary schools, and seven Catholic high schools.

History

1700 to 1780 
Unlike the other British colonies in America, the Province of Pennsylvania did not ban Catholics from the colony or threaten priests with imprisonment.  However, the colony did require any Catholics seeking public office to take an oath to Protestantism.

The earliest Catholic mission in the Lehigh Valley was established in the 1720s in Goshenhoppen, its residents coming from a community in Philadelphia.  The first resident priest arrived there in 1741.  The mission would serve Catholics throughout the southeastern part of the British Province of Pennsylvania.  One year during the Feast of Corpus Christi, some Protestant residents of Goshenhoppen mistook a Catholic procession for a military drill and complained to the colonial governor.

During the French-Indian War, the colonial government prohibited Catholics from joining the colonial militia out of fear that their loyalties were with the French. However, during the American Revolution, many Pennsylvania Catholics served in the militias and colonial army. Catholic missionaries and army chaplains tended to wounded and sick American and French soldiers at a military hospital in Allentown. The first Catholic settlers in Allentown started arriving around 1763. For the next several decades, they were only seen by traveling priests.

1780 to 1900 
In 1784, a year after the end of the American Revolution, Pope Pius VI erected the Apostolic Prefecture of United States of America, including all of the new United States. In 1789, Pius VI converted the prefecture to the Diocese of Baltimore, covering all of the United States. With the passage of the US Bill of Rights in 1791, Catholics received full freedom of worship.

After the discovery of anthracite coal in the region, Catholic immigrants started moving in to work in the mines and related industries. The first Catholic parish in the Lehigh Valley, St. Bernard's, was erected in Easton in 1836. In the Hazelton area, the first Catholic church was constructed in Beaver Meadows in 1847. The first Catholic church in Allentown was Immaculate Conception, dedicated in 1857. In Bethlehem, the first Catholic church was Holy Infancy, opening in 1861. Alvernia College was founded in Reading by the Benedictine Sisters in 1958.

1900 to 1998 
The Diocese of Allentown was founded on January 28, 1961, by Pope John XXIII with territory from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.  He appointed Auxiliary Bishop Joseph McShea of Philadelphia as the first bishop of the new diocese. During his 22-year tenure, McShea oversaw the construction, purchase, and renovation of over 300 church buildings. In 1964, McShea, together with the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, founded Allentown College. He convened the first diocesan synod in May 1968.

McShea founded "Operation Rice Bowl", which began in the form of a small cardboard box in the parishes of the diocese to receive alms directed to relieving a famine in Africa. In 1976, it was adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as a national program. He founded Holy Family Manor, a nursing and rehabilitation center at the former Eugene Grace mansion in Bethlehem. He also established Holy Family Villa, a retirement home for priests. McShea retired in 1983.

Pope John Paul II in 1983 named Bishop Thomas Welsh from the Diocese of Arlington as the second bishop of Allentown. Welsh established the first Youth Ministry Office in the diocese and raised $13 million in an endowment campaign for diocesan schools and other educational efforts. Walsh gained recognition for his work to improve relations between Catholics and Jews. He established a diocesan newspaper, the AD Times, and founded the Catholic Distance University. Welch retired in 2007.

1998 to present 
Auxiliary Bishop Edward Cullen of Philadelphia was the third bishop of the Diocese of Allentown, appointed by John Paul II in 1998. In 2004, Cullen revoked the celebration of mass and other sacraments at The National Centre for Padre Pio in Barto.  Cullen had previously expressed concern over the centre's fundraising practices and lavish salaries for family members managing the centre. The Centre appealed Cullen's ruling to the Vatican, which rejected its appeal. 

In 2008, Cullen closed 47 parishes in the diocese, reducing the total number from 151 to 104. Some of the closed churches were then sold.Cullen retired in 2008.

Pope Benedict XVI named Monsignor John Barres from the Diocese of Wilmington in 2008 as the next bishop of Allentown. During his tenure, Barres established the Saint Thomas More Society for lawyers, and expanded the diocese's Hispanic ministry and evangelization. Barres became bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre in 2016.

As of 2023, Alfred Schlert is bishop of the Diocese of Allentown, named by Pope Francis in 2016.

Bishops

Bishops of Allentown 
 Joseph Mark McShea (1961–1983)
 Thomas Jerome Welsh (1983–1997)
 Edward Peter Cullen (1997–2009)
 John Oliver Barres (2009–2016), appointed Bishop of Rockville Centre
 Alfred A. Schlert (2017–present)

Other diocesan priests who became bishops 
 Ronald William Gainer, appointed Bishop of Lexington in 2002 and later Bishop of Harrisburg
 Joseph Edward Kurtz, appointed Bishop of Knoxville in 1999 and later Archbishop of Louisville
 David B. Thompson, appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Charleston in 1989 and later Bishop of Charleston

Reports of sexual abuse 

Reverend Thomas J. Bender in 1972 was discovered by a Pennsylvania State Trooper sitting in a parked car with a student from Nativity High School.  Both individuals were naked from the waist down.  The trooper gave the two a lecture and released them.  The incident was reported to the archdiocese.  Bender remained in ministry.  In 1984, a boy reported to the archdiocese that Bender had sodomized him. Bender admitted guilt to his superiors, but was allowed to stay in ministry.  When the family threatened to sue and report Bender to police, the archdiocese sent him away for treatment.  Bender pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges and was sentenced to probation.  The archdiocese then granted him retirement.  Other accusations of abuse surfaced in later years.

In 1981, a parent reported to the archdiocese that his 12 year old son had been sexually molested that day by Reverend Michael S. Lawrence at St. Catharine of Siena Parish in Mount Penn.  The archdiocese removed Lawrence from the parish the next day and sent him to Maryland for treatment.  A year later, the archdiocese returned Lawrence to ministry.  The family met with Bishop Walsh in 1994 to protest Lawrence remaining in ministry, but he was not interested in their complaints.  In March 2002, then Monsignor Schlert met with the family and told them that Lawrence had been removed from ministry.

Reverend Ronald J. Yarrosh, assistant pastor of St. Ambrose Roman Catholic Church in Schuylkill Haven, was arrested in May 2004 on charges of possessing child pornography. Investigators found huge numbers of images, magazines and DVDs in his rectory apartment. Yarrosh also embezzled $23,000 in parish funds.  The archdiocese sent him to a treatment facility in Philadelphia.Yarrosh pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 23 months in prison.

Jaclyn Fowler, former principal of Cardinal Brennan Junior/Senior High School in Schuylkill County, sued the diocese in 2009, claiming that she had been sexually harassed by priests at the school.  When the school closed in 2007, the diocese failed to reassign her to another school, unlike other administrators at Cardinal Brennan.

In early 2016, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro convened a grand jury investigation into the alleged sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy in six Pennsylvania dioceses, including the Diocese of Allentown.That same month, the grand jury report named 37 priests in the diocese with credible accusations of sexual misconduct over several decades. Bishop Schlert stated that the cases dated back decades and that most of the accused priests were dead or no longer active in the ministry. Schlert also said that the diocese had had a zero tolerance policy for sexual abuse since 2003.

Shapiro criticized Schlert for his role in handling the sex abuse allegations. Commenting on the grand jury report, Schlert noted that "much has changed in the past 15 years, notably, that the diocese immediately removes accused priests from ministry and reports allegations to law enforcement." The diocese removed three priests  from ministry after the grand jury report was released; however, one was reinstated when the allegation was determined to be unfounded.

The Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed copies of letters between Bishop Welsh and Bishop Leroy T. Matthiesen of the Diocese of Amarillo.  The conversation was about a retired priest in the Texas diocese who was a recovering alcoholic. Welsh expressed concerns that the priest continue to be closely supervised. In 2002, the priest was arrested for abusing a 15-year-old boy.

In August 2018, Reverend Kevin Lonergan was charged with indecent assault and corruption of minors after inappropriately touching a 17-year-old girl and sending nude images of himself to her. In February 2020, Lonergan was convicted and sentenced to one to two years prison.

Reverend David C. Gillis, serving in the Diocese of Orlando, was suspended from ministry in August 1918 after the father of a girl reported that he had abused her at a Catholic school in the Diocese of Allentown. Detectives in Berks County then began investigating Gillis.  In September 2018, the Berks County District Attorney's Office exonerated Gillis after the girl recanted her accusations.District Attorney John T. Adams said, "It is unfortunate that the accusation of child sexual abuse against Reverend Gillis was made public by the Diocese of Orlando before the outcome of this investigation could be determined." 

In May 2020, Timothy McGettigan, a former parishioner of St. Catharine of Siena in Reading, sued the diocese.  He claimed that he was sexually abused in the 1970s by Reverend Joseph Grembocki and Reverend David A. Soderlund, along with other priests he could not identify. Grembocki died in 2016, while Soderlund was defrocked in 2005. Though Soderlund was named in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, Grembocki was not.In August 2020, it was announced that the diocese had 20 new sex abuse lawsuits.

Catholic education

Higher education
 DeSales University – Center Valley
 Alvernia University – Reading

High schools 
 Allentown Central Catholic High School – Allentown
 Berks Catholic High School – Reading
 Bethlehem Catholic High School – Bethlehem
 Marian Catholic High School – Tamaqua
 Nativity BVM High School – Pottsville
 Notre Dame High School – Easton

See also 

 Catholic Church by country
 Catholic Church in the United States
 Ecclesiastical Province of Philadelphia
 Global organisation of the Catholic Church
 List of Roman Catholic archdioceses (by country and continent)
 List of Roman Catholic dioceses (alphabetical) (including archdioceses)
 List of Roman Catholic dioceses (structured view) (including archdioceses)
 List of the Catholic dioceses of the United States

References

Sources and external links 
 Official website
 GCatholic, with Google map - data for most sections 

 
1961 establishments in Pennsylvania
Christian organizations established in 1961
Culture of Allentown, Pennsylvania
Allentown
Allentown