Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay - History

History

The earliest trace of the Catholic faith in the Green Bay area was in 1634. Jesuits followed Nicolet to the area and started to spread Gospel around the important rivers of the Green Bay area. This set a foundation for the creation of the Diocese of Green Bay, which was not officially formed until 1868. People of the area helped keep the faith until the framework of Christianity was finalized.

Father Claude-Jean Allouez, a Jesuit missionary, celebrated Mass with the Native Americans near the present site of Oconto on December 3, 1669, the feast of St. Francis Xavier. There he established St. Francis Xavier Mission. The mission was moved to Red Banks (northeast of Green Bay) for a short time in 1671, and then to De Pere, where it remained until 1687, when it was burned. The missionaries continued working with the Fox, Sauk, and Winnebago tribes under the protection of the French in newly constructed Fort Francis (west of the present Green Bay) until Fort Francis was destroyed in 1728. Catholicism then lay dormant in the area for almost a century.

In 1825, a church school was constructed of the lumber taken from St. Francis Xavier Chapel, but was soon after burned. This church was inspired by the borough of Fort Howard, which continued to expand with the settlement of the Catholic French Canadians. This group had lived in the area since the eighteenth century. The next church to go up in the area was called St. John the Evangelist. This church is the longest surviving place of worship in Wisconsin today. In the early 19th century, St. John's church members spoke mostly French. It eventually became the mother church for all the churches in the Diocese of Green Bay. These churches included St. John Nepomucene in Little Chute, 1836; Holy Maternity of Mary, Manitowoc Rapids, 1848; St Edward, Mackville, 1849; St. Luke, Two Rivers, 1851; St. Anna, St. Anna, 1851; St. Peter, Oshkosh, 1853; and St. Mary (now St. Francis Xavier Cathedral), Green Bay, 1854.

In the spring of 1868, Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Green Bay. Although the area had many French-Canadian Catholics, their numbers shrank as new settlements were set up in other places and immigrants of other nationalities came to the area. Throughout the mid- to late-19th century immigrants poured in, forming their own ethnic churches. In Green Bay, the Germans established St. Mary (now St. Francis Xavier Cathedral) in 1854; the Dutch St. Willebrord in 1864; the Irish St. Patrick in 1865; the Belgians Sts. Peter and Paul in 1875; and the Polish St. Mary of the Angels in 1898. Intermarriage with non-French speakers and the growth of the English language in the area gradually weakened the bonds of the ethnic churches.