1700 to 1808

Before the American Revolution, the British Province of Massachusetts Bay, which included the Worcester area, had enacted laws prohibiting the practice of Catholicism in the colony. It was even illegal for a priest to reside there. To gain the support of Catholics for the Revolution, colonial leaders were forced to make concessions to them. Massachusetts enacted religious freedom for Catholics in 1780.^[2]

After the Revolution ended in 1783, Pope Pius VI want to remove American Catholics from the jurisdiction of the Diocese of London. He erected in 1784 the Prefecture Apostolic of the United States, encompassing the entire territory of the new nation. Pius VI created the Diocese of Baltimore, the first diocese in the United States, to replace the prefecture apostolic in 1789.^[3]

1808 to 1950

Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Boston in 1808 from the Diocese of Baltimore. The new diocese included all of New England in its jurisdiction.^[4] In the 1820s, Irish immigrants began arrived in Worcester Country to work on the railroads and construct the Blackstone Canal. St. John's Church was established in 1834 in the City of Worcester. It is the oldest surviving Catholic church in New England outside of Boston.

The College of the Holy Cross was founded in Worcester by Bishop Benedict Fenwick of Boston in 1843. Fenwick had tried to build the college in Boston, but was thwarted by Protestant politicians running the city. He finally decided to locate it in Worcester on existing church property.^[5][6]

In 1870, Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Springfield from the Diocese of Boston, including Worcester County.^[7] The Worcester area would remain part of the Diocese of Springfield for the next 80 years.

1950 to 2004

Pope Pius XII erected the Diocese of Worcester on March 7, 1950. He removed Worcester County from the Diocese of Springfield in Massachusetts to created the new diocese. Pius XII designated the Church of St. Paul as the cathedral of the new diocese and appointed Auxiliary Bishop John Wright of Boston as the first bishop.

In 1959, Pope John XXXIII appointed Wright as bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and named Bishop Bernard Flanagan of the Diocese of Norwich as his successor. In 1968, Timothy Harrington was appointed as an auxiliary bishop of the diocese by Pope Paul VI. In 1973, the diocese joined the Worcester County Ecumenical Council, a predominantly Protestant organization.^[8]

After Flannagan's retirement in 1983, Pope John Paul II appointed Harrington as the new bishop of Worcester. Harrington retired in 1994 and John Paul II appointed Bishop Daniel Reilly from Norwich to succeed him. During his tenure in Worcester, Reilly reopened St. Joseph Parish but merged it with Notre Dame des Canadiens Parish in Worcester.^[9] He raised over $50 million for his Forward in Faith campaign to place the diocese in a stable financial condition.^[9]

2004 to present

When Reilly retired in 2004, John Paul II appointed Auxiliary Bishop Robert McManus from the Diocese of Providence to replace him.

McManus in 2007 criticized the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester for renting out "sacred space" to the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy for workshops. He said that the Alliance taught subjects that violated Catholic teachings. In October 2007, he stated that Holy Cross might lose its designation as a Catholic institution due to this action.^[10] Holy Cross President Michael C. McFarland said that the college had contractual obligations to the Alliance and would not cancel its agreement with them.^[11]

Lowe B. Dongor was indicted in September 2011 on processing child pornography and stealing money from St. Joseph’s Parish in Fitchburg to send to his family in the Philippines.^[12] After briefly fleeing to the Philippines, Dongor returned to Worcester, where he pleaded guilty and received five years of probation.^[13]

In April 2012, McManus asked Anna Maria College in Paxton, Massachusetts, to rescind an invitation to activist Victoria Kennedy to speak at its commencement ceremony, citing her views on abortion rights for women and same sex marriage.^[14] In May 2012, the college agreed to disinvite Kennedy, but also disinvited McManus, stating that his presence at the ceremony would be a "distraction".^[15]

In June 2012, diocesan officials declined to sell Oakhurst, an historic mansion in Northbridge, Massachusetts used as a retreat center, to James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, a married gay couple.^[16][17] In September 2012, the couple sued McManus and the diocese for discrimination. They cited an email in which church officials said that McManus wanted to stop the sale "because of the potentiality of gay marriages there."^[18][19] In October 2012, the diocese sold the property to a different buyer.^[20]

McManus was arrested in 2013 in Narragansett, Rhode Island, for drunken driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and refusing a chemical sobriety test. At 10:30 pm that evening, McManus had collided with another vehicle, then drove away from the scene. The other driver followed him and called the police. They arrested McManus 20 minutes later at his family home in Narragansett, at which point he refused a DUI chemical test.^[21] McManus later pleaded guilty to refusing to take the test, which resulted in a loss of license for six months, 10 hours of community service and a $945 fine.^[22]

In 2017, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the three secrets of Fátima in Portugal, McManus consecrated the diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.^[23] The Shrine of Mary, Mother of Persecuted Christians was opened in Clinton in 2022. The shrine was installed with help from Nasarean.org, an organization founded by Benedict Kiely which advocates for Christians facing persecution in the Middle East.^[24]

In June 2022, McManus decreed that the Jesuit Nativity School of Worcester could no longer call itself a Catholic school or celebrate mass on its premises. In March 2022, McManus told the school to take down Black Lives Matter and Gay Pride flags from its facility; the school refused to do it.^[25] After hundreds of Holy Cross College students signed a petition asking the administration to bar McManus from their commencement ceremony due to his action, McManus voluntarily decided not to attend.

As of 2023, McManus is the current bishop of Worcester.

Sexual abuse

In 1995, Phil Saviano settled a lawsuit with the Diocese of Worcester, which after attorney fees amounted to $5,700. He alleged being sexually molested by David A. Holley, a priest at St. Denis Catholic Church in Douglas for one year during the 1970s. Two years before the legal action, in 1993, Saviano had read that Holley had been convicted of child sexual penetration of several boys in Alamogordo, New Mexico and sentenced to 275 years in prison.^[26] In August 1997, the Dallas Morning News released a 1968 letter sent by Bishop Flanagan to Jerome Hayden, a Catholic therapist in Holliston.^[27] In his letter, Flanagan stated that Holley:

"...has been ... [accused of] molesting teenage boys on at least two occasions—most recently in a hospital from which he has been barred—and with carrying around and showing to these boys pornographic magazines and books. Although the ... [accusations] were established beyond any doubt in the judgment of the priests who assisted me in the investigation as well as myself, Father has denied any wrongdoing."^[27]

In 1970, the diocese transferred Holley for treatment to the Seton Institute in Baltimore, Maryland without notifying law enforcement. After his treatment was finished, Flanagan refused to let Holley return to Worcester.^[27] Holley eventually ended up in dioceses in Texas and New Mexico.

In 2013, Eran J. McManemy, one of Holley's victims in New Mexico, sued the Diocese of Worcester for allowing Holley to serve in other parts of the United States while knowing he was a pedophile.^[28] In May 2020, the Albuquerque Journal reported that the Diocese of Worcester was being sued by another Holley victime from New Mexico.^[29][30] The lawsuit, which named other dioceses in which Holley served, stated that the Diocese of Worcester deserved "most of the blame."^[30]

In October 2020, Bishop McManus and the diocese were named in a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by a former parishioner.^[31] The plaintiff alleged that Thomas E. Mahoney, a diocesan priest, had groomed and abused him and other boys in the early 1970s in Worcester and Boylston. The lawsuit accused the diocese of failing to stop Mahoney's alleged crimes. After the lawsuit was filed, McManus suspended Mahoney, already retired, from any ministerial duties.^[31]

In December 2022, Nicole Bell, sued the diocese, claiming that she and other women had been sexually abused by William Riley, the food for the poor coordinator at St. John’s Catholic Church. She said that in the early 2010's Riley would coerce her into having sex with him. Bell accused the diocese and the pastor of St. John's of covering up for Riley. The diocese suspended Riley after receiving the complaint and he quit soon after that.^[32]

The diocese in February 2023 release a list of 173 credible accusations of sexual abuse against clergy in the diocese. The list did not include the names of accused clergy.^[33]

Bishops of Worcester

1. John Joseph Wright (1950-1959), appointed Bishop of Pittsburgh and later Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy (elevated to Cardinal in 1969)
2. Bernard Joseph Flanagan (1959-1983)
3. Timothy Joseph Harrington (1983-1994)
4. Daniel Patrick Reilly (1994-2004)
5. Robert Joseph McManus (2004–present)

Auxiliary bishops

• Timothy Joseph Harrington (1968-1983), appointed Bishop of Worcester
• George Edward Rueger (1988-2005)

Other diocesan priest who became bishop

Michael Wallace Banach, appointed Apostolic Nuncio and Titular Archbishop in 2013

High schools

• Immaculate Heart of Mary* – Harvard
• Notre Dame Academy – Worcester
• Notre Dame Preparatory School – Fitchburg
• St. Bernard's High School – Fitchburg
• St. John's High School – Shrewsbury
• St. Mary's Central Catholic High School – Worcester
• St Paul Diocesan Junior/Senior High School – Worcester
• Trivium School* – Lancaster

* Operates independently of the diocese

Closed schools

• Holy Name Central Catholic High School – Worcester
• Magnificat Academy – Warren
• Saint Peter-Marian High School – Worcester