Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Petersburg

The Diocese of Saint Petersburg (Dioecesis Sancti Petri in Florida) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the Tampa Bay region of Gulf Coast Florida.

The Diocese of Saint Petersburg is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Miami. Its mother church is St. Jude the Apostle Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Florida. As of 2023, the current bishop is Gregory Parkes.

Statistics
The Diocese of St. Petersburg comprises 3177 sqmi, encompassing Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus counties. The principal cities are Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater.

As of 2023, the diocese had a total Catholic population of approximately 500,000, with 280,000 of them registered with the diocese.

1500 to 1800
In the mid-1500s, present day Florida became a Spanish colony. The first Catholic presence in the Tampa Bay are was the ill-fated mission of the Spanish missionary Reverend Luis de Cancer. He arrived by sea with several Dominican priests in present day Bradenton in 1549. Encountering a seemingly peaceful party of Tocobaga clan members, they decided to travel on to Tampa. Several of the priests went overland with the Tocobaga while Cáncer and the rest of the party sailed to meet them.

Arriving at Tampa Bay, Cáncer learned while still on his ship that the priests in the overland party had been slaughtered by their companions. Refusing advise to leave the area, Cáncer went ashore, where he too was murdered. The Spanish attempted to establish another mission in the Tampa Bay area in 1567, but it was soon abandoned.

After the signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris to end the Seven Years War, the British took control of the Spanish colonies in Florida, prompting many Catholic settlers to leave. In 1783, after the end of the American Revolution, the British returned all of Florida to Spain and Catholic settlers began returning to the area.

In 1793, Pope Pius VI established the Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas with jurisdiction over all of Spanish Florida.

1800 to 1900
In 1850, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Savannah, which included Georgia and all of Florida east of the Apalachicola River. Seven years later, the same pope move this Florida territory into a new Apostolic Vicariate of Florida and named Bishop Augustin Verot as vicar apostolic. Since the new vicariate had only three priests, Vérot travelled to France in 1859 to recruit more. He succeeded in bringing back seven priests. The first Catholic church in Tampa, St. Louis, was founded in 1859.

In 1870, Pius IX elevated the Vicariate of Florida into the Diocese of St. Augustine and named Vérot as its first bishop. The new diocese covered all of Florida except for the Florida Panhandle region. The Tampa Bay region would remain part of this diocese for the next 98 years.

The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary founded the Academy of the Holy Names, a girls school in Tampa, in 1881. It was the first Catholic school on the Florida Gulf Coast.

Arizona jurist Edmund F. Dunne established the Catholic colony of San Antonio in Pasco County in the early 1880s. Residence in the community was originally restricted to practising Catholics; most of the settlers were Irish and German immigrants.

A yellow fever epidemic in Tampa in 1888 killed three of the resident priests in the area. Bishop John Moore then invited the Jesuit order from New Orleans to assume control of St. Louis Church. In succeeding years, as the area grew in population the Jesuits established more parishes and schools.

Benedictine monks and nuns entered the region in 1880s, founding Saint Leo Abbey in 1886 and Holy Name Priory in 1889. the Sisters of St. Joseph, the Redemptorists and the Salesians also entered the diocese.

1900 to 1968
The parish of Saint Mary, Our Lady of Grace, founded in 1908, was the first Catholic parish in St. Petersburg. The first Catholic church in Clearwater, St. Cecelia, was dedicated in 1924. After World War II, Bishop Joseph P. Hurley of St. Augustine started a massive program of purchasing property throughout Florida to develop new parishes for the increasing Catholic population. He also recruited many priests from the northern states and Ireland to serve in Florida. He founded over 40% of the parishes within the present Diocese of St. Petersburg.

1968 to 1988
On June 17, 1968, Pope Paul VI erected the Diocese of St. Petersburg with territory taken from St. Augustine and Miami. He appointed Auxiliary Bishop Charles B. McLaughlin of the Diocese of Raleigh as the first bishop of St. Petersburg. The pope designated the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle in St. Petersburg as its seat.

McLaughlin's main task was to set up the new diocese. McLaughlin, a pilot, often flew from event to event, earning him the nickname "Hurricane Charlie."He died in 1978.

Monsignor W. Thomas Larkin, the vicar general of the diocese and interim diocesan administrator, was appointed the second bishop of St. Petersburg by Pope John Paul II in 1979. Larkin established fifteen new parishes and three new schools. In 1983, Larkin dedicated the diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. John Paul II erected the Diocese of Venice in Florida in 1983, taking most of its territory from the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

He created new offices for African-American and Hispanic Catholics, along with an office for Catholics with disabilities. Larkin also worked on services for the needy and for those with HIV/AIDS, and was a strong advocate for ecumenicism. Larkin retired in 1988.

1988 to 2000
John Paul II named Bishop John Favalora of the Diocese of Alexandria as the next bishop of St. Petersburg in 1989. He reorganized diocesan administrative functions and consolidated outreach programs. He started WLMS 88.3 FM to serve the northern area of the diocese. In 1993, Favarola declared a "A Year of Favor From The Lord" to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the erection of the diocese. In 1994, Favalora became Archbishop of Miami.

John Paul II in 1995 appointed Reverend Robert N. Lynch of Miami as the fourth bishop of St. Petersburg. In the summer of 1998, Lynch inaugurated the Renew 2000 program to educated and motivate Catholic laity in the diocese. Later that year, he gave support to the Lay Pastoral Ministry Institute, a formal training program for the laity. Lynch also started a program to forgive the debt of parishes.

2000 to present
In 2000, Lynch opened the Bishop W. Thomas Larkin Pastoral Center in St. Petersburg, consolidating ministries from throughout the diocese. The first diocesan synod was held in 2002 and the first eucharistic congress in 2003. He successfully completed the first capital campaign of the diocese. With this funding, Lynch opened Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High School in Spring Hill in 2003 and the Bethany Retreat Center in Lutz in 2007. Lynch also opened Pinellas Hope, a homeless shelter in Pinellas Park that evolved into a service center for the homeless.

After Lynch retired in 2016, Pope Francis that same year appointed Bishop Gregory Parkes of the Diocese Pensacola-Tallahassee as his replacement. In 2018, Parkes consecrated the diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Sex abuse
In 2001, Bill Urbanski, the former diocesan spokesman, accused Lynch of inappropriate behavior during a business trip. Urbanski said Lynch bought him lavish gifts, forced to him to share a hotel room, grabbed his thigh at one point, and asked Urbanski to photograph him topless for a gag picture. The diocese denied any wrongdoing by Lynch, but paid Urbanski $100,000 in severance pay. Lynch apologized for his actions.

Reverend Robert L. Schaeufele was arrested in Michigan in June 2002 on capital sexual battery charges from Pinellas County in Florida. Two men had accused him of giving them enemas when they were 11 years old at Sacred Heart Church in Pinellas Park from 1983 to 1985. Schaeufele pleaded guilty in June 2003 to attempted capital sexual battery and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Four of Schaeufele's victims sued the diocese in November 2003, claiming that it allowed him access to young children despite previous complaints about his behavior. By December 2003, seven lawsuits had been filed against the diocese regarding Schaeufele. In April 2004, the diocese reached a settlement with 12 victims of Shaeufele for $1.1 million.

Texas authorities arrested Reverend Gerry Appleby in March 2003 on a warrant from Pinellas County. Two men had accused him of sexually abusing them when they were minors at Antioch Catholic Church in Tarpon Springs during 1978 or 1979. Appleby left Florida for Texas in 1979. A man had reported abuse by Appleby to the diocese in 1994; Appleby was laicized by the Vatican in 1995. In May 2004, Appleby pleaded guilty to attempted capital sexual battery and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

In 2011, Lynch published a letter detailing how the diocese had spent $4.7 million since 1990 to settle sexual misconduct cases.

In October 2018, Mark Cattell, a magistrate in Virginia, sued the diocese, claiming that he had been sexually assaulted by Reverend Robert D. Huneke from Christ the King Parish in Tampa. Cattell said that Hunke forced him to perform oral sex on him in 1981 when he was nine years old.


 * As part of the lawsuit, Cattell showed letters from John Salveson to the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Huneke's previous posting in New York, accusing him of sexual assault.
 * Another letter from Hunke to Rockville contained an admission of misconduct there.

Salveston in 1980 wrote to Bishop Larkin, warning him about Huneke. Despite Salveson's complaints, the diocese did not remove Huneke from ministry in St. Petersburg until 1982. Huneke then returned to New York, where he faced more sexual abuse accusations. He left the priesthood in 1989.

As of May 2020, the diocese lists nine priests and five lay workers as having credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors. The list does not include religious priests, brothers or nuns.

Bishops of St. Petersburg

 * 1) Charles Borromeo McLaughlin (1968-1978)
 * 2) William Thomas Larkin (1979-1988)
 * 3) John Clement Favalora (1989-1994), appointed Archbishop of Miami
 * 4) Robert Nugent Lynch (1995-2016)
 * 5) Gregory Lawrence Parkes (2017–present)

Auxiliary bishop
Joseph Keith Symons (1981-1983), appointed Bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee

Other priest of this diocese who became a bishop
David Leon Toups, appointed Bishop of Beaumont in 2020

Education
As of 2023, the Diocese of St. Petersburg had 46 schools and early childhood centers along with two universities.

High schools

 * Academy of the Holy Names – Tampa
 * Bishop McLaughlin Catholic High School – Spring Hill
 * Clearwater Central Catholic High School – Clearwater
 * Jesuit High School – Tampa
 * St. Petersburg Catholic High School – St. Petersburg
 * Tampa Catholic High School – Tampa