Diocese of Austin

In November 1840 the Vincentians John Timon and Jean Marie Odin came to Austin and persuaded the legislature to return the old mission lands to the church. When Pope Pius XII created the Diocese of Austin in 1947, it covered thirty-one counties and 25,000 square miles, with 75,495 Catholics, fifty parishes, forty-three missions, 132 priests, 196 sisters and 24 brothers. Bishop Reicher first lived at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel and ran the chancery from two rooms at Newman Hall; a new chancery designed by Walter Koch, Jr., opened in 1958.

What the plaque says

Diocese of Austin In 1947, the Catholic leaders of the San Antonio, Galveston and Dallas Dioceses voted to surrender counties within their Ecclesiastical jurisdiction to create the Diocese of Austin. This move led to the raising of St. Mary Church in Austin to a Cathedral Church and the selection of Louis J. Reicher, the Prothonotary Apostolic and Chancellor of the Diocese of Galveston, as the first Bishop of the Austin Diocese. The new diocese included parishes, missions, stations, chapels, schools, hospitals and St. Edward's University. Soon after his installation, Bishop Reicher began construction projects for the diocese. In all, he would build or remodel about 260 buildings. He also helped organize the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women, strongly endorsed the Cursillo movement, and established the Diocesan Committee on Human Rights during his 23-year tenure. Reicher's successor, Bishop Vincent Harris, focused on attracting Mexican Americans to religious vocations and worked with social justice issues, all while the diocese ordained record numbers during his 14-year tenure.Since the 1980s, major focuses of the diocese have included social ministry, missions and formation laity. The diocese has aided non-Catholics as well through its hospitals, healthcare and daycare centers, and other health facilities. Catholic schools in the diocese have also educated thousands of students. By 2008, the Diocese of Austin included 125 parishes in 25 counties. Today, it continues to provide for the spiritual needs of area Catholics, as well as to the educational, health and social needs of residents throughout Central Texas. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bullock Texas State History Museum — steps away
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Texas State Capitol — 0.2 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.5 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 0.8 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• The Railroad Commission of Texas — steps away
• State Bar of Texas — steps away
• Tyler Rose — steps away
• Confederate Texas Legislatures — steps away