The Diocese of Dallas (Latin: Diœcesis Dallasensis) is a Catholic diocese in North Texas in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, founded in 1890. The mother church is the National Shrine Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dallas. The bishop is Edward J. Burns.
As of 2021, the Diocese of Dallas had a Catholic population exceeding 1.3 million in 69 parishes. It was served by 230 priests (146 diocesan, 84 religious), 177 permanent deacons, 66 female religious, and 108 male religious.
The diocese comprises nine counties in the state of Texas: Collin, Dallas, Ellis, Fannin, Grayson, Hunt, Kaufman, Navarro and Rockwall.
The Dallas area has been under several different Catholic jurisdictions since 1841:
Prefecture Apostolic of Texas (1841 to 1847)
Vicariate Apostolic of Texas (1847 to 1874)
Diocese of Galveston (1874 to 1890)
Diocese of Dallas (1890 to 1953)
Diocese of Dallas-Fort Worth (1953 to 1969)
Diocese of Dallas (1969 to present)
By 1868, the Dallas area had only one Catholic family, ministered to by priests from St. Paul in Collin County. A year later, a proto-parish was established, now incorporated into Saint Anthony Parish in Wylie. Joseph Martinere traveled hundreds of miles through swamps and forests to minister to Catholics in the area. The construction of water projects and railroads during the later part of the 19th century increased the immigration of Catholic Irish and German immigrants into North Texas.
Sacred Heart Parish was dedicated in Dallas in 1869, the first parish in that city. The parishioners erected their church in 1872. Six Ursuline nuns in 1874 opened the Ursuline Academy of Dallas, the first Catholic school in Dallas.
In Fort Worth, the first Catholic church, St. Stanislaus Kostka, was opened in 1879.
Pope Leo XIII erected the Diocese of Dallas on July 15, 1890, taking its territory from the Diocese of Galveston. The Diocese of Dallas at its inception included most of northern and central Texas. The pope appointed Thomas Brennan of the Diocese of Erie as the first bishop of the new diocese.
Wanting to retire the diocesan debt, Brennan tried to use the Ursuline Academy of Dallas as collateral property to the banks for better financing. However, the Ursuline Sisters objected, saying that the property belonged to them, not the diocese. Brennan then tried to change the Ursuline Order constitution to allow him to get the academy property, but failed.
Some priests and laity in the diocese said that Brennan was embezzling diocese funds for his personal use. The Texas Catholic was accused by Brennan's priests of being a publication "whose sole reason for existence seemed to be...to praise the bishop and his vicar general."
Brennan lobbied the Vatican to raise the Diocese of Dallas to an archdiocese. In a letter to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in Rome, he argued for elevating Dallas instead of the Diocese of San Antonio. Brennan warned that making San Antonio, which was primarily Mexican-American, an archdiocese would lead to the "foreignization of the Southwest."
By July 1892, Brennan's metropolitan superior, Archbishop Francis Janssens of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, had concluded that Brennan was "an impudent letter writer". Janssens also noted that within the Diocese of Dallas "there are signs of much dissatisfaction on account of the arbitrary and uncanonical actions of the Bishop."