Филадельфийская архиепархия католической церкви: история и современность.

Latin Catholic diocese of Philadelphia

The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Philadelphia (Archidiœcesis Metropolitae Philadelphiensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in southeastern Pennsylvania in the United States. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia originally included all of Pennsylvania and Delaware, along with seven counties and parts of three counties in New Jersey. The diocese was raised to an archdiocese in 1875. The seat of the archbishop is the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. As of 2023, Nelson J. Pérez is the archbishop of Philadelphia.

The history of the Catholic Church in the area dates back to William Penn when Mass was said publicly as early as 1707.

In 1808, Pope Pius VII erected the suffragan dioceses of Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, and Bardstown, Kentucky, from the territory of the Diocese of Baltimore. The pope appointed Reverend Michael Francis Egan as the first bishop of Philadelphia. In 1868, the Vatican erected the dioceses of Harrisburg, Scranton, and Wilmington, taking their territory from the Diocese of Philadelphia. By 1969, the archdiocese had grown to 1,351,704 parishioners, 1,096 diocesan priests, 676 priests of religious institutes and 6,622 religious women.

John J. McIntyre (2010–present)
Keith J. Chylinski (2024–present)
Christopher R. Cooke (2024–present)
Efren V. Esmilla (2024–present)

Circa 1912 there were about 68,000 students in Catholic schools within the archdiocesan territory. This increased to 250,000 in 1961, but the figures decreased after that year. Enrollment was down to 68,000 in 2012. There were about 50,000 students in Catholic schools in the city of Philadelphia in 2000, and this figure decreased to 30,000 in 2010. In that span one Catholic high school and 23 Catholic elementary schools closed or merged, and the proliferation of charter schools in that period meant that the number of students combined in that type of school outnumbered that of the remaining Philadelphia Catholic schools. In 2012 the archdiocese proposed closing or merging 18 schools in Philadelphia and 31 schools outside of Philadelphia; the Philadelphia Inquirer stated this would further weaken Philadelphia's middle class. The proposal would affect 24% and 29% of the senior high and K 8 schools, respectively.

The Philadelphia abuses were substantially revealed through a grand jury investigation in 2005. Cardinal Justin Francis Rigali adopted the policy of laicizing those who were accused and confirmed by investigations. A second grand jury in 2011 said that as many as 37 priests were credibly accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior toward minors. In 2012, a guilty plea by priest Edward Avery and the related trial and conviction of William Lynn and mistrial on charges against James J. Brennan followed from the grand jury's investigations. In 2013, Charles Engelhardt and teacher Bernard Shero were tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. Lynn was the first official to be convicted in the United States of covering up abuses by other priests in his charge and other senior church officials have been extensively criticized for their management of the issue in the archdiocese. On March 12, 2020, a new trial date was set for Lynn, who was released in 2016 and ordered to be retried after serving 33 months of his sentence. Jury selection was to start on March 16, 2020. However, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic forced Lynn's retrial to be delayed until January 2021. Following his release from prison in 2016, Lynn was ordered to remain on supervised parole until his retrial. In 2019, it was reported that the 2011 grand jury report also resulted in Lynn being suspended from ministry. On May 5, 2020, Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced that it now expected to pay $126 million in reparations. The archdiocese also said its Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program, which was established in 2018, has received a total of 615 claims, and had settled 208 of them for $43.8 million as of April 22, 2020. On August 14, 2020, it was revealed that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and its suffragan dioceses of Pittsburgh, Allentown and Scranton were enduring the bulk of 150 new lawsuits filed against all eight Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses. On December 3, 2020, William McCandless, a member of the Wilmington based religious order Oblates de St. Francis De Sales who was formerly assigned to DeSales University in Lehigh County, was charged in Philadelphia for possession of child pornography. Much of McCandless' child pornography was imported from overseas. McCandless has been ordered to remain under house arrest until the outcome of his trial.

In 2015, it was reported that the school's director of religious education, Margie Winters, had been fired from the Waldron Mercy Academy after a parent had reported her directly to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for marrying her long term lesbian partner in a civil ceremony in 2007. Winters had been upfront with school administrators at the time of her hiring and was advised to keep a low profile which she says she did. Many parents expressed anger and concern over the school's decision. Principal Nell Stetser justified the decision by arguing that "many of us accept life choices that contradict current Church teachings, but to continue as a Catholic school, Waldron Mercy must comply with those teachings." But she called for "an open and honest discussion about this and other divisive issues at the intersection of our society and our Church." The Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, called the dismissal "common sense."