The Diocese of Orange (Latin: Dioecesis Arausicanae in California; Spanish: Diócesis de Orange; Vietnamese: Giáo phận Quận Cam) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church that covers all of Orange County, California, in the United States.
It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The diocesan cathedral is Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove. In addition to its 56 parish churches, the diocese oversees 41 schools and three general hospitals, plus one disabled and five ethnic ministry centers.
The Diocese of Orange was erected in 1976, then grew rapidly with immigrants from Asia and Latin America. It faced a sexual abuse scandal and a resulting $100 million settlement to its victims in 2005, which was the largest such settlement at the time.
The current diocesan bishop is Kevin Vann, who was installed on December 10, 2012. Diocesan offices are situated at the Christ Cathedral campus in Garden Grove. The diocesan patron saints are Our Lady of Guadalupe and Andrew Dũng-Lạc.[2][3] It is sometimes referred to as the Diocese of Orange in California, to avoid confusion with the Diocese of Orange in Orange, France, which was dissolved in 1801.
The Catholic presence in present-day Orange County dates to the 1776 founding of Mission San Juan Capistrano by Junipero Serra and the Franciscan order. At the time, the region was part of the Las Californias province of New Spain.
In 1804, the Spanish split the Province of California into two territories:
After the Mexican War of Independence, the new Mexican Government in 1835 secularized all of the missions in coastal California, including San Juan Capistrano.
In 1840, Pope Gregory XVI set up the Diocese of California. California.[4] The new diocese included both Alta California and Baja California. Gregory XVI set the episcopal see at present-day San Diego in Alta California. The first bishop of the new diocese was Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno. Moreno designated the Mission Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara as his pro-cathedral.
After ceding Alta California to the United States at the close of the Mexican–American War in 1848, the government of Mexico objected to San Diego, a see city now located in the United States, having jurisdiction over Mexican parishes. In response, the Vatican divided the Diocese of California into American and Mexican sections in 1849. The American section became the Diocese of Monterey; the see city was moved to Monterey because of its more central location. The Royal Presidio Chapel in Monterey became the cathedral of the new American diocese.
Pope Pius IX split the Diocese of Monterey in 1853, erecting the Metropolitan Archdiocese of San Francisco. He designated the Diocese of Monterey as a suffragan diocese of the new archdiocese.[4]
In 1859, Pius IX changed the name of the diocese to the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles due to the growth of Los Angeles.[4] St. Boniface, the oldest continually operating Catholic church in Orange County, was dedicated in Anaheim in 1872.[5] St. Mary's, the first Catholic church in Fullerton, was dedicated in 1912.[6] The first parish in Orange, Holy Family, was established in 1921.[7]
In 1922, Pope Pius XI suppressed the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, erecting in its place the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego and the Diocese of Monterey-Fresno.[8]
The Orange County area would remain part of the Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego, succeeded by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for the next 54 years.
On March 24, 1976, Pope Paul VI established the Diocese of Orange. Auxiliary Bishop William Robert Johnson of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was appointed the first bishop of Orange.[9] Johnson designated Holy Family Church in Orange as cathedral of the new diocese. Johnson died in 1986 and Pope John Paul II named Bishop Norman Francis McFarland of the Diocese of Reno as his replacement that same year.[10] McFarland retired in 1998. John Paul II named Bishop Tod David Brown from the Diocese of Boise as McFarland's replacement.[11]
The diocese grew rapidly as the local population swelled with Catholic immigrants from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Latin America. In 2010, the diocese claimed a Catholic population of over 1.2 million.
In November 2011, the diocese purchased the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, in bankruptcy court from Robert Schuller Ministries. In a Los Angeles Times article, Brown mentioned that over the years, visiting Catholic clerics from other countries always wanted to visit the cathedral. The article also mentioned that the population of the diocese had doubled during Brown's tenure, increasing the need for more facilities. The facility, renamed Christ Cathedral, was consecrated as the seat of the diocese in 2019.[12]
At the mandatory retirement age, Brown retired on September 21, 2012. The Holy See named Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Fort Worth to succeed him.[13][14] The new Christ Cathedral, was consecrated as the seat of the diocese in 2019. In November 2020, Vann sued the former administrator of the Orange Catholic Foundation. Vann claimed that the administrator had defamed him by suggesting Vann wanted to obtain funds from the Foundation for COVID-19 pandemic relief, but actually use them for sex abuse claims against the diocese.[15]
As of 2023, Vann is the current bishop of Orange.
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In 2005, Bishop Brown apologized to 87 victims of sexual abuse by diocesan clergy and announced a settlement of $100 million, following two years of mediation. In addition, 91 victims received an average of $659,000 each. The perpetrators included 31 priests, ten lay people, two nuns, and one religious brother.[16]
In a 2007 interview with the Orange County Register, Scott Hicks stated that in 1965 Brown, then a priest, sexually abused him several times when Hicks was a 12-year-old at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Bakersfield, California. The Diocese of Fresno had investigated Hicks' accusations in 1997 and found they lacked any credible basis. The case file was turned over to Kern County investigators in 2002, who took no action.[17]
In October 2007, Judge Gail Andler opened a contempt of court hearing on Brown regarding John Urell, a diocese official responsible for managing sexual abuse accusations. Brown had sent Urell to a treatment center for priests in Canada despite the fact that Urell was still testifying in court on a sexual abuse case.[18] Brown pleaded not guilty.[19] The contempt citation was later dropped as a condition of a $7 million case settlement. The female victims had been minors at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California, and Santa Margarita High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, California. They had been abused there by lay workers[20][21]
In 2001, Bishop Brown first announced plans to build a new cathedral to succeed the Cathedral of the Holy Family. However, with the onset of the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the diocese, Brown deemed it "inappropriate" then to raise funds for a new cathedral.[22] In 2005, the diocese purchased land in Santa Ana and established Christ Our Savior Cathedral Parish, planning to eventually build a cathedral there.[22] The cost of the cathedral project was estimated at approximately $200 million, which prompted comparisons to the cost of building the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles.[23]
In October 2010, Crystal Cathedral Ministries, the Protestant congregation that owned Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, filed for bankruptcy protection.[24] Later in 2010, the diocese announced its interest in buying the building and converting it into a Catholic cathedral. It was seen as a potential cost and time-saving alternative over building a new one.[25]
In 2011, a U.S. bankruptcy court judge approved the sale of Crystal Cathedral and its campus to the diocese for $57.5 million;[26] the sale was finalized in February 2012.[27][28] At that time, the diocese removed "Cathedral" from Christ Our Savior Parish's name, repurposing it as a parish church. In June 2012, the diocese announced that the new cathedral would be named "Christ Cathedral".[29] The Vatican had approved the building's new name, using suggestions from the diocese and its members.[30]
In June 2013, the diocese moved St. Callistus Parish to the Christ Cathedral campus. At the same time, Crystal Cathedral Ministries moved to the former St. Callistus campus, leased to them by diocese. In September 2013, the diocese moved the St. Callistus' parish school to the cathedral campus, renaming it Christ Cathedral Academy.
In 2014, the diocese announced a $72 million plan to renovate the cathedral building to meet Catholic liturgy requirements while maintaining its architectural qualities.[31][32][33][34][35] Construction began in 2017 and was completed in 2019.[31][32][33][34][35]
The Diocese of Orange oversees 31 parochial elementary schools and three high schools. Three independent Catholic elementary schools and four independent Catholic high schools (i.e., run by a religious order or independent board of trustees) are located in the diocese.
