Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange - History

History

The Catholic Church presence in present-day Orange County dates to the 1776 establishment of Mission San Juan Capistrano, a Spanish mission founded by Father Junipero Serra and the Franciscan order. At the time the region was part of the Las Californias province of New Spain. In 1804 present-day Orange County became part of Alta California when Las Californias was split in two; Alta California then became part of Mexico when the latter gained independence from Spain in 1821. From the mission the missionary priests set out to convert the native population to Catholicism; over 4,000 people were converted between 1776 and 1847.

In 1840, the Holy See erected the Diocese of the Two Californias to recognize the growth of the provinces of Alta California and Baja California. This diocese – with its episcopal see located in Monterey – included all Mexican territory west of the Colorado River and the Gulf of California (the modern U.S. states of California and Nevada, and parts of Utah, Arizona, and Colorado, and the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur).

In 1848 Alta California was ceded to the United States after the Mexican-American War, and the Mexican government objected to an American bishop having jurisdiction over parishes in Mexican Baja California. The Holy See split the diocese into American and Mexican sections, and the American section was renamed the Diocese of Monterey. In 1859 the diocese became known as the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles to recognize the growth of the city of Los Angeles; the see was transferred to Los Angeles in 1876. In 1922 the diocese split again, and Orange County became part of the newly-erected Diocese of Los Angeles-San Diego, which became the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1936.

Orange County remained part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles until March 24, 1976, when Pope Paul VI established the Diocese of Orange. Los Angeles auxiliary bishop William Johnson was appointed as the first Bishop of Orange, and the existing Holy Family Church in Orange was designated as the cathedral for the new diocese. The diocese has grown rapidly as the local population has swelled with Catholic immigrants from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Latin America, and in 2010 claimed a Catholic population of over 1.2 million.

At the mandatory retirement age, Bishop Tod Brown retired on September 21, 2012. Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Fort Worth was named by the Holy See as Brown's successor.