Дубукская архиепархия: католическая юрисдикция в Айове.

Latin Catholic ecclesiastical jurisdiction in Iowa, USA

The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Dubuque (Archidiœcesis Metropolitae Dubuquensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in the northeastern quarter of the state of Iowa in the United States. It includes all the Iowa counties north of Polk, Jasper, Poweshiek, Iowa, Johnson, Cedar, and Clinton counties, and east of Kossuth, Humboldt, Webster and Boone counties. The archdiocese has an area of about 17,400 square miles (45,066 km2). The Archdiocese of Dubuque is a metropolitan archdiocese. There are three suffragan dioceses in the ecclesiastical province under Dubuque's metropolitan archbishop: the Dioceses of Davenport, Des Moines, and Sioux City.

The seat of the archdiocese is St. Raphael's Cathedral, Dubuque, named in honor of the Archangel Raphael. The current Archbishop of Dubuque is Thomas Robert Zinkula. The Archdiocese of Dubuque is one of only a handful of US archdioceses not based in a major metropolitan area. The archdiocese contains 199 parishes and has three Catholic colleges: Loras College and Clarke University in Dubuque and Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids. A number of religious orders maintain a presence in the archdiocese. Notable orders include the Trappist monastery New Melleray Abbey (male) southwest of Dubuque, and the Trappistine monastery Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey (female) south of Dubuque. The archdiocese is also home to the motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Basilica of St. Francis Xavier is located in the archdiocese, located in Dyersville, about 25 mile (40 km) west of Dubuque.

The earliest Catholic settlers were French, German, and Irish. The area was under the jurisdiction of Vincentian Joseph Rosati, Bishop of St. Louis. Under his jurisdiction that the early missionaries arrived in what would become the state of Iowa. Belgian Jesuit Charles Felix Van Quickenborne organized the Catholic community in Dubuque into a parish. Father Charles Francis Fitzmaurice arrived the following year and began to coordinated resources for the construction of a church building, but died of cholera in the spring of 1835. Dominican Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli arrived later that year. Mazzuchelli ministered to a scattered population of less than 3000. He established a number of parishes in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin; several were named after the Archangels: Saint Raphael's in Dubuque, Saint Michael's at Galena, Illinois, and Saint Gabriel's at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Pope John Paul II declared Father Mazzuchelli Venerable in 1993, and his case for sainthood is pending. Pope Gregory XVI created the Dubuque Diocese on July 28, 1837, and named Bishop Mathias Loras as its first bishop. In 1989 a new St. John's Church was dedicated. St. John the Baptist is part of the parish was clustered with the 4 parishes of St. Elizabeth Pastorate, a cluster of five parishes sharing offices and facilities. Residents gathered the funds to build a church and school. In 1891, local resident Andreas Rapp and his wife donated some land, which allowed for the construction of a brick building containing a school and a convent for the sisters, as well as the establishment of a cemetery. The school opened in September of that year with 45 children attending. Mass was celebrated in a small sanctuary adjoining the schoolroom. By the 1860s the name of Saints Peter and Paul had been adopted, and in 1889 the original wooden church was replaced by a large, brick and stone Romanesque Revival structure, which remains in use today. After Bishop Smyth died in 1865, John Hennessey succeeded him as Bishop of Dubuque. During Hennessey's tenure, the population of Dubuque exploded as the Milwaukee Railroad Shops came to the city. Hennessey created several parishes in Dubuque: Sacred Heart, Holy Ghost, St. Anthony's, and Holy Trinity to deal with this population explosion. During this time, Bishop Hennessey proposed separating territory from the diocese to create a new diocese for southern Iowa. While he proposed Des Moines as the seat of the new diocese, Pope Leo XIII selected Davenport as the site. Nicholas E. Gonner (1835–1892), a Catholic immigrant from Luxembourg, founded the Catholic Publishing Company of Dubuque. His son Nicholas E. Gonner (1835–1892) took over in 1892, editing two German language weeklies, an English language weekly, and the Daily Tribune, the only Catholic daily newspaper ever published in the United States. On June 15, 1893, Pope Leo XIII elevated the Dubuque Diocese to an archdiocese, and Bishop Hennessey became the first archbishop. Archbishop Hennessey died in 1900 and was buried at the cathedral.

After the death of Archbishop Hennessey, Archbishop John J. Keane led the archdiocese for eleven years until poor health forced him to retire in 1911. During his tenure, the archdiocese lost its western territory to form the Diocese of Sioux City and achieved its current size.

During the years of the Great Depression and World War II, Archbishop Francis J. L. Beckman occupied the see. In the years leading up to the war, Beckman opposed military action. A collector of fine art pieces, he had placed a number of art pieces in a museum at Columbia (now Loras) College and perhaps, thinking he could gain funds to further his collection, involved the archdiocese in what turned out to be a dubious gold mine scheme. Beckman signed notes on behalf of the archdiocese, which suffered a loss of more than $500,000 when the scheme fell apart and the perpetrator of the scheme (Phillip Suetter, of California) was arrested. President Roosevelt directed the FBI to investigate Beckman to determine his role in the financial scheme. Most of Beckman's collection was sold to pay the notes. Because of Beckman's troubles, Bishop Henry Rohlman returned from the Davenport, Iowa, diocese to become coadjutor archbishop in 1944. Beckman was allowed to retain his office, but was informed that Rohlman now led the archdiocese. Beckman retired in 1947, and left Dubuque for Cincinnati. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. One of the casualties in that attack was Father Aloysius Schmitt, a priest of the archdiocese, who was serving on board the USS Oklahoma. The boat capsized during the attack, leaving Schmitt and other men trapped below with only a small porthole for escape. Schmitt declined to be pulled from the ship, and instead helped other men, twelve in all, to escape, but perished himself. Schmitt was the first chaplain of any denomination to die in World War II. For his actions, he was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and a destroyer was named in his honor.

Soon after the war, Admiral Byrd led an expedition to the Antarctica. The chaplain on his flagship, William Menster, was a priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque. Menster became the first priest to set foot on the continent, and later consecrated Antarctica in 1947. One of the effects of the post war baby boom was an increase in the number of students at some Catholic schools. In Dubuque, the Sacred Heart parish school had the largest student population of such schools in the midwest. On December 2, 1954, Archbishop Leo Binz succeeded Archbishop Rohlman as Archbishop of Dubuque and served in that capacity until December 16, 1961, when he became Archbishop of Saint Paul, Minnesota.

James Byrne was named the next archbishop of Dubuque on March 7, 1962, and was formally installed at St. Raphael's on May 8, 1962. He attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council. Archbishop Byrne implemented the changes brought about by the council in the Archdiocese of Dubuque and quickly established the Priests Senate, a clergy advisory board, as well as another advisory board dealing with assignment of priests. These were among the first such boards founded in the United States. Archbishop Byrne retired from office on August 23, 1983, and remained in Dubuque until his death August 2, 1996.

On February 23, 1984, Daniel William Kucera, OSB, was installed as the tenth bishop and eighth archbishop of Dubuque. Archbishop Kucera had earned a doctorate in education. At 36, he had become the youngest president of St. Procopius College (now known as Benedictine University). His background in education led Vatican officials, including the pope, to seek his advice. During Kucera's tenure as archbishop, he remodeled St. Raphael's Cathedral, revised and published the guidelines for the sacrament of Confirmation, reduced the number of deaneries from 16 to 14, reorganized the structure of the archdiocese and created an archbishop's cabinet to coordinate administration of the archdiocese. In 1987, Kucera also launched a plan that divided the archdiocese into three regions with a resident bishop in each. The Dubuque Region was served by retired Archbishop James Byrne and Archbishop Kucera; the Cedar Rapids Region by Bishop Francis Dunn, and Waterloo Region by William Franklin who was consecrated as a bishop in April 1987. However, Bishop Kucera eventually dropped the plan after the death of Bishop Dunn in 1989 and Bishop Franklin's nomination as the head of the Diocese of Davenport. In 1986 the archdiocese celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding; Archbishop Kucera received an honorary degree from the University of Dubuque. On October 16, 1995, Archbishop Kucera retired, moved to Aurora, Colorado, and then subsequently returned to live in Dubuque.

The Dubuque Archdiocese has not been immune to the sexual abuse crisis affecting the church, but has had to deal with cases involving a couple dozen priests over a 60 year period.

The archdiocese has also felt the effects of the priest shortage that has affected the church in recent times. In recent years many smaller, rural parishes have had to close and their congregations had been absorbed into other nearby parishes. Some rural parishes have been clustered together where one priest will serve two or more parishes. Some parishes have no resident priest. Another effect is that some duties that a priest would have performed in the past are performed by either religious (sister or deacon) individuals, or by the laity.

The Mel Gibson film The Passion of the Christ caused controversy in the archdiocese as well. That controversy has long since passed. One of the main issues raised by the film was an editorial cartoon on the movie that the Dubuque Telegraph Herald published in its editorial section. This cartoon featured a religious sister using corporal punishment. Some in the community have felt that this was a slight against the sisters and all their years of hard work. Others, mainly middle age to older adults, have said that this was representative of the sisters who taught them while they were in school.

In Dubuque, the Catholic schools are all part of the Holy Family system. It was proposed to turn St. Anthony's school into a central school for certain grades. Parents of the parish felt that their concerns were being ignored. Eventually, the Archdiocesan Board of Education vetoed the plan, and told the school system to continue work on planning the system's future.