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Latin Catholic jurisdiction in the United States

The Archdiocese of Washington (Archidiœcesis Metropolitae Vashingtonensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church for the District of Columbia and several Maryland counties in the United States. The Archdiocese of Washington is home to the Catholic University of America and Georgetown University. The archdiocese is also home to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The only suffragan diocese of the archdiocese is the Diocese of Saint Thomas. The mother church of the archdiocese is the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in downtown Washington. As of 2023, Wilton Gregory is the archbishop of Washington.

In the 17th century, the present day District of Columbia was part of the British Province of Maryland. Unlike the other American colonies, Maryland had been settled by Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, as a haven for Catholic refugees from Great Britain. On March 25, 1634, the first Catholic Mass in the English speaking colonies was celebrated by Andrew White on St. Clement's Island in Maryland. Due to immigration, by 1660 the population of Maryland had gradually become predominantly Protestant. Political power remained concentrated in the hands of the largely Catholic elite. In 1649, Maryland passed the Maryland Toleration Act, mandating religious tolerance for trinitarian Christians. It was the first law requiring religious tolerance in the English North American colonies. After gaining power, the Puritans exacted restrictions on Catholics in the colony. To celebrate Mass, Catholics had to set up private chapels in their homes.

In 1704, the colonial assembly passed a law prohibiting Catholics from holding political office. With the passage of the US Constitution in 1789, religious freedom was guaranteed throughout the United States. In 1789, Pope Pius VI erected the Diocese of Baltimore, covering all of the United States including the State of Maryland. The pope named Carroll as the first bishop of Baltimore. The present day District of Columbia would remain part of this diocese, followed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore, for the next 150 years. The City of Washington was founded in 1791 as part of the plan to make it the nation's capital. Carroll founded Georgetown College in what was then the village of Georgetown in 1792. It was the first Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States. The first Catholic Church in Washington, St. Patrick's, was established in 1794 to minister to the Irish immigrant stone masons who were constructing the White House and US Capitol Building. A brick church for St. Patrick's was completed in 1809.

In 1814, the British Army entered Washington during the War of 1812 and set the city on fire. William Matthews, pastor of St. Patrick's, saved the church from burning down, then persuaded British Major General Robert Ross to preserve it from further harm. In 1889, Catholic University of America opened in Washington, D. C., the first papally chartered graduate and research university in the country. Trinity College was founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1897 as the nation's first Catholic liberal arts college for women.

When Hickey retired in 2000, John Paul II named Archbishop Theodore McCarrick from the Archdiocese of Newark as the next archbishop of Washington. McCarrick retired as archbishop in 2008. Bishop Donald Wuerl of the Diocese of Pittsburgh was named archbishop of Washington by Benedict XVI in 2008. In late 2009, the Council of the District of Columbia was debating a bill that would prohibit discrimination against gay men and lesbians. Wuerl advocated for so called religious liberty provisions that he said would protect the Catholic Church's ability to provide social services, such as adoption in accordance with Catholic teaching on marriage. Soon after Wuerl made this statement, The Washington Post characterized the archdiocese as giving an "ultimatum" to the city. The New York Times termed the statement a "threat" In response, Wuerl said that there was" no threat or ultimatum to end services, just a simple recognition that the new requirements by the city for religious organizations to recognize same sex marriages in their policies could restrict our ability to provide the same level of services as we do now." When the Council of DC passed the anti discrimination bill in December 2009, Wuerl stated that it did not adequately protect religious liberty. However, he said that the archdiocese would continue to serve the poor and hoped to be "working in partnership with the District of Columbia consistent with the mission of the Catholic Church." However, in February 2010, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington ended its foster care and public adoption programs in the District rather than approved same sex couples as foster or adoptive parents. The agency also modified its employee health care benefits to avoid having to extend coverage to same sex couples. In 2011, Wuerl established the Saint John Paul II Seminary in Washington. The archdiocese and other local Catholic institutions in 2012 sued the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over regulations for prescriptions and health services. The plaintiffs objected to HHS requiring Catholic institutions that do not primarily serve Catholics, such as hospitals or universities, to provide health care coverage to employees for artificial contraception and abortion services for women. In 2017, the archdiocese sued the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) The archdiocese had tried to purchase Christmas ads that would cover bus exteriors. However, WMATA had refused, citing its policy against religious advertising. The archdiocese lost the case in the lower courts and the US Supreme Court in 2020 declined to hear it. By August 2018, Wuerl was facing increased criticism over his handling of sexual abuse cases against the clergy when he was bishop of Pittsburgh. At the end of August, Wuerl flew to Rome, where he met with Pope Francis. The pope instructed Wuerl to confer with the priests of the archdiocese regarding his next steps. On September 3, 2018, Wuerl met with over 100 archdiocesan priests. He told them he knew nothing about the McCarrick allegations until they became public. On September 8, 2018, Deacon James Garcia, the master of ceremonies at St. Matthew's Cathedral, informed Wuerl that he was refusing to assist him at Mass anymore due to his handling of sexual abuse cases; Garcia asked Wuerl to resign. Wuerl resigned as archbishop of Washington in October 2018. He remained as apostolic administrator in the archdiocese until a successor was installed. In April 2019, Archbishop Wilton Gregory from the Archdiocese of Atlanta was appointed archbishop of Washington by Pope Francis. He became the first African American to lead the archdiocese. Pope Francis raised Gregory to the rank of cardinal at a consistory in Rome in November 2020. In December 2019, The Washington Post reported that McCarrick had given John Paul II $90,000 during the early 1990s and Benedict XVI $291,000 starting in 2005. McCarrick also made smaller donations to other Vatican officials, The money came from the "Archbishop's Special Fund", a fund controlled by McCarrick and supported by donations from wealthy Catholics. Some critics accused McCarrick of trying to bride the Vatican to ignore accusations of sexual abuse against him. The Vatican responded that the donations did not affect any Vatican policies or actions. The archdiocese took in nearly a third less money in its 2019 annual fundraising appeal, which had been renamed from "Cardinal's Appeal" to "Annual Appeal", in the wake of the scandals. In December 2020, during the Covid 19 pandemic, the archdiocese sued the city of Washington, objecting to an attendance cap of 50 parishioners during any Mass or other service to prevent the spread of infection. Before the suit went to trial, the two parties settled, with the city raising the attendance cap to 250 attendees or one quarter of the church's allowed seating. As of 2023, Gregory is the current archbishop of Washington.

The Archdiocese of Washington in December 2006 paid a $1.6 million settlement to 16 men with credible accusations of sexual abuse by archdiocesan clergy from 1962 to 1982. In September 2018, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announced that it was investigating the archdiocese for reports of sex abuse by clergy. In October 2018, the archdiocese released the names of 31 archdiocesan clergy with credible accusations of sexually abusing minors since 1948. Reverend Urbano Vazquez from the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Columbia Heights was convicted in August 2019 of four counts of sexual abuse involving two girls. He had groped a 13 year old in 2015, kissed and groped a nine year old in 2016 and sexually assaulted an adult female in 2016. In November 2019, Vazquez was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In October 2019, The Washington Post reported that police were investigating an allegation that Bishop Michael Bransfield from the Diocese of Wheeling Charleston had inappropriately touched a nine year old girl at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington while on a 2012 trip. Bransfield served at the basilica in several positions during the 1980s Bransfield denied the allegation.

The Archdiocese of Washington centralized its school administration as part of its Center City Consortium, established in 1997.