TIMELINE

1780-81
Mass celebrated for the first time in Newport, Rhode Island.

1783
Restrictive franchise against Catholics revoked by act of the assembly.

1789
December 8:First Mass celebrated in Providence.

1812
In November, the Sacrament of Confirmation was administered in Bristol by Bishop Cheverus of Boston, when Marie Therese Maurice received this Sacrament.

1813
Providence became a station to be visited at regular intervals and Mass was celebrated in an old wooden schoolhouse on Sheldon Street, near Benefit. The building was blown down in the great gale of 1815.

1837
Parish of SS. Peter and Paul, Providence was established.

1844
March 17, Rt. Rev. William Tyler, D.D., consecrated first Bishop of Hartford with residence at SS. Peter and Paul Church in Providence, Rhode Island.

1847
April 11: Consecration of the "old" SS. Peter and Paul church, Providence as a Cathedral following completion of additional wings.

1849
June 18: Bishop Tyler dies.

1850
November 10: Rt Rev. Bernard O'Reilly consecrated second Bishop of Hartford with residence in Providence, Rhode Island.

1851
Bishop O'Reilly brings the Sisters of Mercy into the diocese to staff the Cathedral School.

1856
January: Bishop O'Reilly perished at sea while returning to Providence from Europe.

1858
March 14: Rt. Rev. Francis P. McFarland consecrated third Bishop of Hartford with residence in Providence, Rhode Island.

1872
February 16: Providence established as a diocese comprising the state of Rhode Island and the Massachusetts counties of Bristol, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket. Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Hendricken, D.D. was consecrated first Bishop of Providence.

1878
Cornerstone laid for present Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul.

1886
June 11: Bishop Hendricken dies. His Funeral Mass is the first Mass celebrated in the unfinished Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul.

1887
Rt. Rev. Matthew Harkins, D.D., consecrated as the second Bishop of Providence.

1889
Consecration of present Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul.

1904
Present boundaries of Diocese set when Diocese of Fall River was created from Massachusetts counties and towns formerly located in the Diocese of Providence.

1915
April 28: Bishop Thomas F. Doran, D.D., named Auxiliary Bishop to Bishop Matthew Harkins, D.D. Died January 3, 1916.

1917
October 23: Bishop Dennis M. Lowney, D.D., named Auxiliary Bishop to Bishop Matthew Harkins, D.D. Died August 13, 1918.

1921
May 23: Bishop Harkins dies. Bishop William A. Hickey, D.D., becomes the third Bishop of Providence.

1933
October 4: Bishop Hickey dies

1934
Bishop Francis P. Keough, D.D., consecrated as the fourth Bishop of Providence.

1947
Bishop Francis P. Keough, D.D., elevated to archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

1948
July 14: Bishop Russell J. McVinney, D.D., consecrated the fifth Bishop of Providence.

1953
Providence included in establishment of the Hartford Province along with the Archdiocese of Hartford and the Dioceses of Norwich and Bridgeport.

1960
May 11: Bishop Thomas F. Maloney, D.D., named Auxiliary Bishop to Bishop Russell J. McVinney, D.D.

1962
September 10: Bishop Thomas F. Maloney dies.

1964
January 30: Bishop Bernard M. Kelly, D.D., J.C.D., consecrated as Auxiliary Bishop to Bishop Russell J. McVinney, D.D. Resigned: June 12, 1971.

1971
August 10: Bishop Russell J. McVinney dies.

1972
January 26: Bishop Louis E. Gelineau, D.D., consecrated the sixth Bishop of Providence.

1974
October 7: Bishop Kenneth A. Angell, D.D., consecrated as Auxiliary Bishop to Bishop Louis E. Gelineau, D.D.

1992
October 6: Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth A. Angell, D.D., named Bishop of Burlington.

1995
February 7: Bishop Robert E. Mulvee, D.D., J.C.D., named Coadjutor Bishop of Providence.

1997
Diocese celebrates 125th anniversary; Bishop Louis E. Gelineau celebrates 25th year of episcopal ordination.

 Bishop Russell J. McVinney and
the growth of the diocese

In December, 1947, Bishop Francis P. Keough was appointed Archbishop of Baltimore. Msgr. Peter E. Blessing again served as administrator of the diocese until it was announced in June that Father Russell J. McVinney, a native Rhode Islander and the priest whom Bishop Keough had appointed as rector of Our Lady of Providence Seminary, had been chosen to be the fifth Bishop of Providence.

Bishop McVinney was born in Warren, on Nov. 25, 1898, and baptized in St. Mary of the Bay in December. Shortly after he was born, the McVinney family moved to the then sparsely settled but growing Mount Pleasant section of Providence. Because his parish church in Providence, Blessed Sacrament, did not have a parish school, Bishop McVinney attended the local public schools. Like so many other young people in Mount Pleasant in the early part of the century, he also attended Father Simmons' School of Religion as Blessed Sacrament's religious education program was called. After grammar school, he enrolled at La Salle Academy and graduated from there in 1916. He continued his education at St. Charles Seminary, Catonsville, Md., the Grand Seminary in Montreal, and St. Bernard Seminary, Rochester, N.Y. When the American College in Louvain, Belgium, was reopened after World War I, he was sent to Europe and was ordained in Louvain on July 18, 1924.

After a short, temporary assignment at the Cathedral, Father McVinney was appointed assistant pastor at St. Patrick's, Harrisville, where he served until 1929, when he was appointed assistant pastor in St. Edward's, Pawtucket, and teacher at St. Raphael's Academy. In 1935, he went to study journalism at the University of Notre Dame, after which he was again assigned to the Cathedral as an assistant and associate editor of The Providence Visitor. In 1941, he took up his new duties as rector of Our Lady of Providence Seminary. Bishop McVinney would preside over the diocese during the years of the baby boom and the growth of new suburbs around the cities of Rhode Island. In order to provide for the growing and shifting Catholic population of the diocese, Bishop McVinney created 28 new parishes, almost all of them in the suburbs and rapidly growing rural areas. Because most pastors and parents in the 1960s continued to stress the importance of a Catholic education, Bishop McVinney also oversaw the establishment of 40 new parochial schools and the building of many new buildings for existing schools. As the population of school-age children expanded, both the public and private school systems struggled to keep abreast of the need. The increasing number of schools stretched not only the financial resources of the church, but also its personnel resources. When the number of schools outpaced the number of vocations, many parish schools had to resort to tuition payments for the first time in order to pay the salaries of lay teachers.

Among the early projects Bishop McVinney undertook with Catholic Charity Funds was the building of a new hospital for the chronically ill, Our Lady of Fatima, in North Providence. The hospital opened in 1954 and soon expanded into a community hospital.

As the ordinary, Bishop McVinney was not only concerned with meeting the physical needs of his people but their spiritual needs as well. Within the first year of his episcopacy, Bishop McVinney sought to revive the Holy Name Societies in the diocese. They had played important roles in many parishes in the years between the wars as the key to a spiritual revival of the whole diocese. In October, 1949, over 51,000 men took part in a candlelight Holy Hour at Narragansett Race Track in Pawtucket, organized by the Holy Name Society. During the 1950-51 Holy Year, two other large public services were held at Narragansett Park. The apostolic delegate presided at a Mass, attended by 36,000 women and over 7,000 children on June 9, 1951. An estimated 60,000 men were present for a rosary service the following day. Later that same year, Father Patrick Peyton preached at the Rosary Crusade held at the park which drew large crowds and served as the kickoff for a campaign in the parishes to secure pledges of the saying of the family rosary. Thousands turned out once again for another outdoor rally at Narragansett Park during the Marian Year in 1954.

The large rallies of the 1950s were complemented by the growing popularity of the closed retreat. Individuals could make closed retreats at the Cenacle in Newport, the Trappists in Cumberland and the Benedictines in Portsmouth. In the 1930s, closed group retreats became very popular among the French Canadians. In 1950, the Oblates of Mary opened Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House in Manville to serve as a center for French-language retreats. When, in 1939, Bishop Keough bought the Aldrich property at Warwick Neck, he envisioned that the buildings would also be used as a retreat house during the summer. Father Edmund Brock conducted the first closed retreat at Warwick Neck in 1950 as part of his work with the Labor Schools. In 1951, Father Brock persuaded William J. Halloran, who was working on the retreat program, to sell to the diocese the Hazard estate at Narragansett that he had recently purchased for use as a retreat house. Father Brock held the first retreat at the Our Lady of Peace Retreat Center in January, 1952. A few years earlier, on May 1, 1948, the Sisters of the Cross and Passion opened the Immaculate Heart of Mary retreat center at Peace Dale. In 1954, Bishop McVinney dedicated a youth retreat center to St. Dominic Savio on a donated farm, also in Peace Dale.

© 1997, The Providence Visitor