Roman Catholic Diocese of Little Rock - History

History

A dozen Catholic priests accompanied Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto down the Mississippi River in 1541 to a Quapaw Indian village near present-day Helena-West Helena, where they lifted a cross and sang praise to God. This marked the first Christian ceremony within the future boundaries of Arkansas.

In 1682, French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory for a Catholic king, Louis XIV of France. A La Salle lieutenant, Italian-born Henri de Tonti, established Arkansas Post at the mouth of the Arkansas River but scrapped plans for a Jesuit chapel and mission house after battles with the Indians.

Father Jacques Gravier, a Jesuit priest, celebrated the first Catholic Mass in a Quapaw village on November 1, 1700. Bernard de la Harpe took an exploratory trip up the Arkansas River in search of gold and silver in 1722, and rumors of wealth brought French and German emigrants a year later. The land swung back and forth between French and Spanish rule as ecclesiastical progress waxed and waned.

After the United States acquired the Arkansas territory in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, newcomers arrived from Europe, Africa and older Southern states. Most were Protestant. Father Ennemond Dupuy, who built the first Catholic Church near present-day Pine Bluff in 1834, was the only priest living in Arkansas upon statehood in 1836. In 1838, the Sisters of Loretto opened the first Catholic school along the Arkansas River, downstream from Pine Bluff. Five years later, Rome turned its eye to Arkansas.

Pope Gregory XVI established the Diocese of Little Rock on November 28, 1843. His appointed bishop, Andrew J. Byrne, was consecrated March 10, 1844, in New York and rode into Little Rock on horseback June 4. The Irish-born bishop found a scattered Catholic population of possibly 700.

The first Cathedral of St. Andrew, at 2nd and Center streets in Little Rock, was consecrated in November 1846.

Bishop Byrne established the College of St. Andrew in Fort Smith in 1849 and envisioned a colony of Irish immigrants in the west Arkansas city, even traveling to his home country to recruit Catholic families. Though that dream was never realized, the bishop persuaded an Irish religious institute, the Sisters of Mercy, to come to Little Rock, where they founded Mount St. Mary Academy in 1851.

The bishop battled a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment fueled by the Know Nothings, a quasi-political party. The church in Helena was burned in 1854. As the country edged closer to Civil War, soldiers occupied diocesan property in Fort Smith. Bishop Byrne died June 10, 1862, in Helena. Arkansas remained without a bishop for nearly five years.

Edward M. Fitzgerald, another Irishman, came to Arkansas by steamboat after his consecration as the second bishop of Little Rock on February 3, 1867, in Columbus, Ohio. At age 33, the nation’s youngest prelate rebuilt churches and mission stations damaged by the Civil War.

While in Rome for the First Vatican Council of 1869-1870, Bishop Fitzgerald publicly opposed the doctrine of papal infallibility, which states the pope is always correct when he speaks ex cathedra on church doctrine. The young bishop explained that to vote otherwise would have hampered evangelization efforts in Arkansas, where there were fewer than 2,000 Catholics.