Diocese of Baton Rouge

The Diocese of Baton Rouge (Latin Dioecesis Rubribaculensis; French Diocèse de Bâton-Rouge; Spanish: Diócesis de Baton Rouge), is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese in the Florida Parishes region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of New Orleans. The current bishop is Michael Duca.

The present-day Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge began with the work of French missionaries among the Native American peoples of the area. The Jesuit priest Pierre Charlevoix celebrated the first mass in the Baton Rouge area in 1722. The first Catholic churches in the region were:

In 1793, Pope Leo XIII erected the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas. It was renamed as the Roman Catholic Diocese of New Orleans in 1826 and elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese in 1850. The Baton Rouge area would remain part of the archdiocese for the next 110 years

On July 22, 1961, Pope John XXIII erected the Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge, taking its territory from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. He named Auxiliary Bishop Robert E. Tracy of the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana as the first bishop of Baton Rouge. Tracy designated St. Joseph Church as the cathedral church of the new diocese. When he took office, the new diocese had a Roman Catholic population 164,476 out of a total population of 464,904, as reported in the 1960 U.S. census.

Tracy established a consultative process as an integral part of the diocesan administration, and encouraged greater participation by the laity in governing the diocese. He also oversaw the construction of the Catholic Life Center and the renovation of St. Joseph Cathedral. In 1967, Tracy became the first American bishop to publish a financial statement for his diocese. In 1972, he established a committee for the regulation of allowing remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments, saying, "The Church has a pastoral responsibility of healing and forgiveness".

After Tracy retired in 1974, Pope Paul VI named Joseph V. Sullivan of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph as the second bishop of Baton Rouge. In February 1979, he refused to allow theologian Charles Curran, whom Sullivan denounced as "heretical" and "not in accord with Catholic teaching", to speak at the Catholic Campus Ministry at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. After he removed the Claretian Fathers from the chaplaincy at Louisiana State University in March 1979, 51 priests filed a list of grievances with the Holy See.

In February 1981, Sullivan issued a pastoral letter in which he declared that ministries to divorced and remarried Catholics "may not witness, explicitly or implicitly, that the living Church condones the marital lifestyle of those living in an invalid marriage." He also promoted Catholic education, establishing elementary schools and planning for a new high school. Sullivan died in 1982.

In 1983, Pope John Paul II named Auxiliary Bishop Stanley Joseph Ott of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans as the third bishop of Baton Rouge. During his nine-year tenure, he encouraged the increased participation of the laity in diocesan affairs, and promoted the ecumenical movement by engaging with leaders of other religions. He also oversaw a major reorganization of the Presbyteral Council and other diocesan structures.