Largest provincial archdiocese split in two

Texas, USA – The Vatican has announced that the Archdiocese of San Antonio, which provincially overseas more dioceses than any other in the world will be split in two.

Recently, the Most Reverend Jose Gomez, the first auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Denver since 1984, will soon be elevated to Archbishop of San Antonio in Texas. Bishop Gomez has served as auxiliary Bishop of Denver since his appointment in 2001. The 53–year–old Monterrey, Mexico native came to Denver from Texas where he served in both Houston and San Antonio for 14 years.

According to the Church’s Code of Canon Law, “Neighboring particular churches [or diocese] are to be brought together into ecclesiastical province”. The Archdiocese of San Antonio currently oversees all 15 of those dioceses in the state of Texas, making it the largest ecclesiastical province in the world. However, this changed with the Vatican’s announcement as the Church elevated the diocese of Galveston–Houston to a metropolitan Archdiocese thus shouldering some of the load.

While this change will not alter the current diocesan borders, it will make Texas the only U.S. state besides California to have two provinces within it.

Currently, Houston is the largest city in the nation, which is not the center of an Archdiocese. It is also the 4th largest city in the nation and Texas’ oldest Catholic diocese.

Dioceses that will now fall under the jurisdiction of the new Galveston–Houston Archdiocese, include Austin, Beaumont, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Tyler and Victoria in Texas whereas the ecclesiastical province of San Antonio now comprises the following suffragan Dioceses: Dallas, Fort Worth, Amarillo, Lubbock, San Angelo, El Paso and Laredo.

With this announcement, Pope John Paul II elevated Bishop Joseph Anthony Fiorenza to Archbishop of the 1,006,425–member Archdiocese and likewise elevated Bishop Daniel Nicholas Dinardo to coadjutor of the new Archdiocese.