Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Diocese of Dallas

DIOCESE OF DALLAS (DALLASCENSIS).

The Diocese of Dallas, created 1890, comprises 108 counties in the northern and north-western portion of the State of Texas, U.S.A., and El Paso County in the western section, an area of 118,000 square miles. The city of Dallas has a population of 95,000 and stands in the centre of a circle within whose radius of fifty miles is included nearly one-half of the population of Texas. It was settled chiefly by people from Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, with a sprinkling of foreigners and a considerable number of negroes. It is an important distributing centre, rich in mineral resources and products of the soil (chiefly cotton). As late as 1868 there was only one Catholic family resident there whose members, with several scattering settlers, were attended as a mission station from St. Paul's, Collin County, by Father Joseph Martinere, later a domestic prelate and vicar-general of the diocese. His visits often necessitated journeys over hundreds of miles through swamp and forest. In 1892 the Catholic population of the diocese had grown to 15,000 with 30 priests ministering to them.

The first bishop, THOMAS FRANCIS BRENNAN, was born October 10, 1853, in the County Tipperary, Ireland [in Bally Cullen --ed.] and ordained priest at Brixen in the Tyrol, 4 July, 1880. He was consecrated at Erie, Pennsylvania, 5 April, 1891. Two years later (1 February, 1893) he was transferred to the titular See of Utilla and made coadjutor of the Bishop of St. John's, Newfoundland. He was removed December, 1904, and called to Rome, where he resides (1908), having been transferred, 7 October, 1905, to the titular See of Caesarea in Mauretania.

As his successor the Rev. EDWARD JOSEPH DUNNE, rector of the church of All Saints, Chicago, was chosen. He was born in the County Tipperary, Ireland, 23 April, 1848, emigrated to the United States with his parents when a child, and was ordained priest 29 June, 1871, in Baltimore. His consecration took place in Chicago, 30 November, 1893. He foresaw from the first the religious possibilities assured by the location and resources of Dallas, also by the enterprise of the people and by the climate. To his energy, administrative abilities, and zeal is owing the new cathedral, admittedly the finest in the South-Western States. The Vincentian College, St. Paul's Sanitarium, the Ursuline Academy, novitiate and provincial house (1907), the cathedral parochial school, St. Patrick's church, the industrial school for coloured children are other monuments of religion erected within a short space of time. Fort Worth, Sherman, El Paso, Denison, Munster, Weatherford, Marshall, and several other cities have substantial and even beautiful churches and religious institutions, educational and charitable.

Religious communities represented in the diocese are: Men. - Benedictine Fathers, five charges; Jesuits, six; Oblates; and Vincentians. Women. - School Sisters of Notre Dame; Sisters of Charity (Emmitsburg); Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word; Sisters of the Holy Cross; Sisters of Loretto; Sisters of St. Mary; Sisters of Divine Providence; White Benedictine Sisters of the Congregation of Mt. Olive; Sisters of St. Rose of Lima; Ursuline Nuns; Sisters of Mercy.

Statistics of the diocese (1908) give 83 priests (50 diocesan and 33 regulars); 52 churches with resident pastors, 51 with missions, 75 stations, 12 chapels; 12 academies for girls, 24 parochial schools with 3180 pupils, 14 ecclesiastical students, 1 industrial school (50 pupils); 1 orphan asylum (83 inmates); 6 hospitals; total Catholic population (estimated) 60,000.

SISTER M. AUGUSTINE ENRIGHT