The Diocese of Shreveport () is a

Latin Church The Latin Church () is the largest autonomous () particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical ...

ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

covering the parishes of northern

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

in the United States. The Diocese of Shreveport is a

suffragan diocese A suffragan diocese is one of the dioceses other than the metropolitan archdiocese that constitute an ecclesiastical province. It exists in some Christian denominations, in particular the Catholic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandr ...

of the metropolitan

Archdiocese of New Orleans The Archdiocese of New Orleans (; ; ) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical division of the Catholic Church spanning Jefferson (except Grand Isle), Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, and Washingto ...

. Its mother church is the Cathedral of Saint John Berchmans, in Shreveport. The current bishop is Francis Malone.

Statistics

The Diocese of Shreveport covers an area of . The largest cities in the diocese are

Shreveport Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, third-most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, Lo ...

, Monroe,

Bossier City Bossier City ( ) is a city in Bossier Parish in the northwestern region of the state of Louisiana in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan statistical area. In 2020, it had a total ...

and Ruston. As of 2023, the Catholic population of the diocese was 37,986, served by 37 active diocesan priests, 14 religious priests, 31

permanent deacons A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian denominations, such as the Catholi ...

and 19 nuns. The diocese covered 27 parishes and 10 missions.

History

1717 to 1800

The first Catholic missionary arrived in northwestern Louisiana from

East Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that consists of approximately 38 counties. It is roughly divided into Northeast Texas, Northeast, Southeast Texas, Sout ...

in 1717. The Franciscan priest

Antonio Margil Antonio Margil, OFM (18 August 1657 – 6 August 1726) was a Spanish Franciscan missionary in North and Central America. Based at the College of Santa Cruz in Santiago de Querétaro, after 1715, he worked largely in Texas and Louisiana. Father Ma ...

encountered Adaes Native Americans near present-day

Robeline Robeline is a village (Louisiana), village in western Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 183 at the 2000 United States Census, 2000 census. It is part of the Natchitoches, Louisiana, Natchitoches Micropolitan Statis ...

. At the tribe's request, he constructed the Mission of San Miguel de Linares, the first Catholic church in the region. Margil then journeyed to Natchitoches to minister to the French Catholics population there.

1800 to 1986

After the

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase () was the acquisition of the Louisiana (New France), territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. This consisted of most of the land in the Mississippi River#Watershed, Mississipp ...

in 1803, all of present-day Louisiana became part of the United States. At that time, the new State of Louisiana was part of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, with its see city as New Orleans. In 1825, the Vatican renamed this diocese as the Diocese of New Orleans. The town of Shreveport was founded in 1836. In 1853,

Pope Pius IX Pope Pius IX (; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in hist ...

erected the Diocese of Natchitoches, removing the Shreveport area and most of Louisiana from the Diocese of New Orleans. Reverend Jean Pierre, parish priest at Bayou Pierre in Louisiana, started visiting Shreveport in 1856. He later persuaded Natchitoches Bishop Augustus M. Martin to move the Bayou Pierre parish to Shreveport, which happened later in 1856. After working as a tutor to Protestant families for a year, Pierre built a wooden church in Shreveport. He completed a brick church in 1858. By 1869, Pierre estimated that there was a Catholic population of 1,000 in his parish. On his return to Louisiana from the

First Vatican Council The First Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the First Vatican Council or Vatican I, was the 20th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, held three centuries after the preceding Council of Trent which was adjourned in 156 ...

in Rome in 1870, Martin stopped in

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

in France to recruit missionaries. Five of those who responded, along with Jean Pierre, died at Shreveport in the yellow fever epidemic of 1873. In 1910,

Pope Pius X Pope Pius X (; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 to his death in August 1914. Pius X is known for vigorously opposing Modernism in the Catholic Church, modern ...

erected the Diocese of Alexandria, which included the Shreveport area. In 1976,

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXII ...

renamed the Diocese of Alexandria to Diocese of Alexandria-Shreveport. The Church of St. John Berchmans in Shreveport became a co-cathedral in that city.

1986 to present

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

erected the Diocese of Shreveport on June 16, 1986, taking its present territory from the Diocese of Alexandria-Shreveport. He appointed Auxiliary Bishop William Friend of Alexandria-Shreveport as the first bishop of Shreveport. Friend designated the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans in Shreveport as the cathedral church of the new diocese. Friend retired in 2006. The second bishop of Shreveport was Reverend Michael Duca from the Diocese of Dallas, appointed by

Pope Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

in 2008.

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

named him bishop of the Diocese of Baton Rouge in 2018. Reverend Peter Mangum served as administrator until the appointment of Reverend Francis Malone from the Diocese of Little Rock as bishop by Francis in 2019. In 2020, the diocese started a cause for their canonization of Reverend Jean Pierre, a pioneer priest from the 19th century. The Vatican has named Pierre and his colleagues as

servants of God Servant of God () is a title used in the Catholic Church to indicate that an individual is on the first step toward possible canonization as a saint. Terminology The expression ''Servant of God'' appears nine times in the Bible, the first five in ...

.In December 2022, Reverend Rothwell Price, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, was named a

Chaplain of His Holiness Chaplain of His Holiness is a title of distinction given by the Pope in recognition of a priest's service to the Church. They are addressed with the honorific of "Monsignor" and have certain privileges with respect to ecclesiastical dress and ve ...

, with the title of Monsignor.

Sexual abuse

A Tennessee man sued Reverend Donald Dickerson and the

Jesuit Order The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 by ...

in November 2010, claiming that he had been sexually abused by Dickerson. The assaults allegedly took place at St. John Berchmans Cathedral in Shreveport in 1982 before the diocese was erected. He was also accused of sexually assaulting high school students from the Diocese of Dallas. The Jesuit Order expelled Dickerson in 1986 and he was later defrocked by the Vatican. The diocese reported in 2018 that it had received no allegations of sexual abuse from its founding in 1986 to 2018. In 2020, the diocese was sued by a man who claimed it shielded a priest who sexually abused him as a child in the 1970s. In May 2021, Reverend Seby Shan Chemmampallil from Christ The King Parish in

was arrested on two counts each of possession of

child pornography Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...

and its the distribution, along with sexual abuse of animals. The diocese immediately suspended him from ministry.

Bishops

# William Benedict Friend (1986 – 2006) # Michael Duca (2008 – 2018); appointed Bishop of Baton Rouge # Francis Ignatius Malone (2020 – present)

Coat of arms

Education

As of 2023, the Diocese of Shreveport had two high schools and four elementary schools. *

Loyola College Prep Loyola College Prep is a private Catholic coeducational high school in Shreveport, Louisiana, founded by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), but now operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Shreveport. It is among the oldest functioning former Jesu ...

– Shreveport * St. Frederick Catholic High School – Monroe

Media

The Diocese of Shreveport publishes a monthly magazine, ''The Catholic Connection''.

References

External links

Roman Catholic Diocese of Shreveport Official Site
{{authority control Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical Province of New Orleans Christian organizations established in 1986 Culture of Shreveport, Louisiana

1986 establishments in Louisiana