A Quick History of the Diocese of Winona

On November 26, 1889, Pope Leo XIII issued the apostolic constitution which created the Diocese of Winona and set its geographical boundaries. The diocese encompasses the 20 southernmost counties of Minnesota.

Seventeen months before the diocese was erected, the Province of St. Paul was established and placed under the care of Archbishop John Ireland.  It included the state of Minnesota, the Dakota Territory, and a portion of the Province of Milwaukee.

Father Joseph B. Cotter, the pastor of the Church of St. Thomas in the city of Winona, was appointed the diocese's first bishop. On December 27, 1889, Fr. Cotter was consecrated Bishop of Winona in the Cathedral at St. Paul. Ten days later he was installed in the Pro-cathedral of St. Thomas, January 5, 1890.

Almost 50 years before the diocese was established, the Bishop of Dubuque, Father Mathias Loras, sent Father Lucien Galtier as a permanent priest to the Minnesota settlement of Mendota, across the river from Fort Snelling. Father Galtier offered a Mass in Wabasha, the first Mass recorded in the yet-to-be-named Diocese of Winona.

The missionary priests worked with the Catholic settlers from Ireland, Germany, Bohemia and Poland. A large influx of immigrants was recorded in the area between the Territorial assignment (1849) and the granting of Statehood in 1858. Settlements and churches sprang up along the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers.

The area of greatest growth was along the fertile land bordering the Minnesota River Valley. Into one of these areas came a group of German Catholics from St. Charles, Missouri. At the bend of the Minnesota River, they established a new village with a Sioux name for the blue-colored clay of the riverbed: Mankato. It was here that the second church -- Saints Peter and Paul -- was established and first resident priest in the diocese -- Father Valentine Sommereisen -- was assigned there).

Father Sommereisen anived in Mankato in 1856 and by the end of the Civil War, he had secured the help of the School Sisters of Notre Dame of Milwaukee to meet the educational needs of the growing river city. On September 3, 1865, the Notre Dames arrived and in the same month opened the oldest parochial school in southern Minnesota and the first in the present Diocese of Winona.

The need for more schools and educators brought the teaching arm of the Sisters of Saint Francis of the Congregation of our Lady of Lourdes to Winona. In 1894 the Winona Seminary for Ladies opened its doors and eventually became the College of St Teresa.

It was for education and nursing that Mother Alfred Moes brought her sisters from Owatonna to Rochester. But after the deadly twister of 1882, Mother Alfred conceived the idea of a hospital for Rochester and offered to build and staff it if the physicians William and Charles Mayo would take charge of the diagnostic and surgical needs. The Doctors Mayo and the Sisters of St. Francis opened the doors of their hospital on September 30, 1889.

The Brothers of the Christian Schools were invited to open the diocese's first high school, Cotter High School, in Winona. Bishop Heffron named it for his predecessor. The school was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day in 1911. In September of 1913 Bishop Heffron established St Mary's College (now Saint Mary's University). In 1933 the Christian Brothers took charge of the administration and staffing of the college.

Between 1933 and 1948, Saint Mary's College provided training for future priests, brothers, and laymen. In 1948, Bishop Leo Binz erected Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary on the campus of St. Mary's College. The seminary was completed by Bishop Edward Fitzgerald in 1951. Most of the active priests in the diocese have been trained there.

Also in 1951, the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart Parish was established as a union of St. Thomas and St. Joseph parishes in Winona. The building itself was completed in 1952. The cathedral is the home parish for the diocesan bishop, and it is here that bishops are installed. Bishop Bernard Harrington was installed here as the seventh Bishop of the Diocese of Winona on January 6, 1999.