Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York
The Archdiocese of New York () is an ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church (particularly the Roman Catholic or Latin Church) located in New York State. 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. 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. The Archdiocese also operates the  well-known St. Joseph's Seminary, commonly referred to as Dunwoodie. The Archdiocese of New York is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province of New York which includes the suffragan dioceses of Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Ogdensburg, Rochester, Rockville Centre and Syracuse. It publishes a bi-weekly newspaper, "Catholic New York", the largest of its kind in the United States. Prelature. The ordinary of the Archdiocese of New York is an archbishop whose cathedra is The Cathedral of St. Patrick (commonly St. Patrick's Cathedral) in Manhattan, New York. The Archbishop of New York is also the metropolitan of the  larger , which consists of the eight dioceses that comprise the State of New York with the exception of a small portion (Fishers Island) that belongs to the . As such, the metropolitan archbishop possesses certain limited authority over the suffragan sees of the province (see ecclesiastical province). R. Luke Concanen became the first Bishop of the (then) Diocese of New York in 1808. The current archbishop of New York is Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan. History. On November 26, 1784, Pope Pius VI erected the Apostolic Prefecture of United States of America with the territory of what was then the entire United  States of America. On November 6, 1789, the same pope raised this prefecture to a diocese and changed its title to Diocese of Baltimore headed by the first American bishop, John Carroll. At the time, there was a dearth of priests to minister to the large territory. The first Catholic Church in New York City was St. Peter's Church on Barclay Street. The land was purchased from Trinity Church with community donations and a gift of 1,000 pieces of silver from King Charles III of Spain. The church was built in the federal style. Among its regular worshippers were  Saint Elizabeth Seton and Venerable Pierre Toussaint. On April 8, 1808, Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Philadelphia, the Diocese of Boston, the Diocese of Bardstown, and the Diocese of New York, 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. The initial territory of the Diocese of New York encompassed all of the State of New York and Sussex, Bergen, Morris, Essex, Somerset, Middlesex, and Monmouth counties in northeastern New Jersey. The first appointed Bishop of New York could  not set sail from Italy due to the Napoleonic blockade, so a Jesuit priest, Anthony Kohlmann, was chosen as administrator pending his arrival. He was instrumental in organizing the diocese and preparing for its original Cathedral of St. Patrick to be built on Mulberry Street. 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 sought to keep Catholics out of the country and to prevent those already present from advancing. 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. On July 19, 1850, the same pope elevated the Diocese of New York diocese 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. 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. 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. 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. Archdiocesan demographics. As of 2016, the Catholic population of the archdiocese was 2,642,740. These Catholics were served by 696 archdiocesan priests and 590 priests of religious orders. Also laboring in the diocese were 319 permanent deacons, 962 religious brothers, and 2,260 nuns. As of 2021, the Archdiocese currently has around 30 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. In 1959, there were 7,913 nuns and sisters ministering in the archdiocese, representing 103 different religious orders. Leadership. Below is a list of individuals who have led the Archdiocese of New York and its antecedent jurisdictions since its founding. Auxiliary Bishops of New York. Unlike coadjutors, auxiliary bishops do not have the right of succession, per canon 975, §1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Four auxiliaries went on to become Archbishop of New York. Schools. The headquarters of the archdiocesan school system is in the New York Catholic  Center Terrence Cardinal Cooke Building in Midtown Manhattan. Cemeteries. The following cemeteries are under the auspices of Calvary & Allied Cemeteries, Inc.: Many parishes have their own cemeteries, or their own sections in private cemeteries. An incomplete list of those cemeteries follows: Reports of sex abuse. 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. 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. 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. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law on February 14, 2019. On April 26, 2019, the Archdiocese released a list of 120 Catholic clergy accused of committing acts of sexual abuse. Some of those on the list, which includes both male and female church workers, have  been convicted and many are deceased. The list was accompanied by a letter of apology from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who asked for forgiveness. On August 14, 2019, James Grien, who has accused McCarrick of sexually abusing him when McCarrick was an auxiliary bishop of New York, filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New York. 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 and Archdiocese of Newark . On September 30, 2019, Dolan released a report written by Barbara S. Jones, a former judge and prosecutor. Her report stated, among other things, that the Archdiocese had completed the process of removing all of its remaining accused clergy from active ministry. In the same report, Jones recommended that the Archdiocese should also hire a sex abuse "czar" to vet all complaints. Jones, who was commissioned by Dolan in 2018 to conduct the review of the church's handling of abuse allegations, also recommended hiring "a compliance officer for the Office of Priest Personnel to monitor its functions and oversee  the new document management system". Dolan also backed the Jones Report and stated at a press conference that the archdiocese was expanding its sex abuse policy as well. 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. 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. Jenik, who submitted his resignation letter upon turning 75 in March 2019, had stepped out of public ministry in  October 2018 after the allegation surfaced. 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. 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. In the lawsuit, eight men alleged that longtime Orange County priest Rev. George Boxelaar, who is now deceased, sexually abused them when they were children , adding their claims to those of at least three other accusers of the late Boxelaar who have sued. 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 both Holy Cross and Our Lady of Mount Carmel churches as defendants. In addition to these new lawsuits, a Scarsdale Catholic school teacher identified as Edwin Gaylor also confessed to committing acts of sex abuse. 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. Rutler, considered a conservative icon, has made numerous appearances on EWTN and has written 30 books. 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." As of December 2021, no charges against Rutler have been announced in New York. Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New