The Diocese of Oakland () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archbishop of San Francisco.
The Diocese of Oakland comprises Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Its mother church is the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland. Its patron saints are Mary, mother of Jesus and Francis de Sales.
History
Name changes
The East Bay area has undergone several different Catholic jurisdictions since it became part of the United States.
Diocese of the Two Californias (1840 to 1849) Diocese of Monterey (1849 to 1853) Archdiocese of San Francisco (1853 to 1962 Diocese of Oakland (1962 to present)
1772 to 1840
The first known mass in the Eastern Bay region was celebrated in 1772 by the missionary Juan Crespí near present-day Lake Merritt during the first European visit there. The Mission San José was established in 1797 by Fermin de Lasuen in present-day Fremont to evangelize the Chochenyo people. By this time, California had become part of the Spanish Empire.
After the Mexican War of Independence ended in 1821, California became a part of Mexico. After the passage of the Mexican secularization act of 1833, the Mexican Government in 1836 stripped Mission San José, along with other missions, of their vast properties.
In the 1820s the Peralta family, a large landowner of present-day Alameda County, built a chapel at Rancho San Antonio, their ranch in present-day Oakland. Served by priests from Mission San José, the chapel was named Saint Anthony's. This was the first Catholic presence in Oakland.
1840 to 1883
After the Mexican–American War in 1850, California became part of the United States. In 1853, Bishop Joseph Alemany of Monterey moved to San Francisco to become the first archbishop of San Francisco. At that time, Mission San José was the only parish in the East Bay area. The East Bay area would remain part of the archdiocese for the next 109 years.
In 1858, Alemany sent James Croke to establish St. Mary, Immaculate Conception Parish in Oakland. The first church in San Leandro was St. Leander's Church, dedicated in 1864 to serving a growing Portuguese immigrant population. The archbishop in 1869 formed All Saints Parish in Hayward, composed mainly of immigrant families. Its church was dedicated in 1923. St. Michael's parish, the first in Livermore, was established in 1872. In 1893, Saint Francis de Sales Church was dedicated in Oakland. St. Joseph's Church, the first Catholic church in Berkeley, was dedicated in 1883.
1883 to 2003
In 1962, Pope John XXIII erected the Diocese of Oakland, taking Alameda and Contra Costa counties from the Archdiocese of San Francisco. The pope named Auxiliary Bishop Floyd Begin of the Diocese of Cleveland as the first bishop of Oakland. When Begin started his tenure, the new diocese had a Catholic population of approximately 386,000 Catholics. Saint Francis de Sales Church was designated as the cathedral. During the 1970s. the cathedral parish was known for developing what was called the "Oakland Cathedral Sound". Begin died in 1977.
The second bishop of Oakland was Auxiliary Bishop John Stephen Cummins from the Diocese of Sacramento, named by Pope Paul VI in 1977. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused catastrophic damage to Saint Francis de Sales Cathedral and Sacred Heart Church. Facing a repair cost of $8 million for both facilities, Cummins opted to demolish them and plan a new cathedral instead. Auxiliary Bishop Allen Vigneron from the Archdiocese of Detroit was named coadjutor bishop by Pope John Paul II in early 2003 to assist Cummins.
2003 to present
When Cummins retired in later 2003, Vigneron automatically replaced him as bishop. In 2005, ground was broken for the new $131 million Cathedral of Christ the Light on Lake Merritt in Oakland. It opened in 2008.
To replace Vigneron, who had become archbishop of Detroit, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Auxiliary Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Diocese of San Diego as the next bishop of Oakland. In 2011, Cordileone was made chairman of the American Bishops' conference's Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage. A year later, Cordileone became archbishop of San Francisco.