The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Toronto (Latin: Archidioecesis Metropolitae Torontina) is a Roman Catholicarchdiocese that includes part of the province of Ontario. Its archbishop is also the ecclesiastical provincial for the dioceses of Hamilton, London, Saint Catharines, and Thunder Bay. The Archbishop is Francis Leo, appointed in February 2023.
Mass is celebrated within the Archdiocese of Toronto in 36 ethnic and linguistic communities every week making the Archdiocese one of the most ethnically diverse Catholic dioceses in the world.[citation needed]
Overall the Archdiocese of Toronto is the largest in Canada.[clarification needed]
In the 1840s, the major challenge was the huge unexpected influx of very poor immigrants, mostly Irish escaping the Great Famine. The fear was that Protestants might use their material needs as a wedge for evangelization. In response the Church built a network of charitable institutions such as hospitals, schools, boarding homes, and orphanages, to meet the need and keep people inside the faith.[2] The church was less successful in dealing with tensions between the French and the Irish Catholic clergy; eventually the Irish took control.[3]
Irish Catholics arriving in Toronto faced widespread intolerance and severe discrimination, both social and legislative, leading to several large scale riots between Catholics and Protestants from 1858 to 1878, culminating in the Jubilee Riots of 1875. The Irish population essentially defined the Catholic population in Toronto until 1890, when German and French Catholics were welcomed to the city by the Irish, but the Irish proportion still remained 90% of the Catholic population. However, various powerful initiatives such as the foundation of St. Michael's College in 1852 (where Marshall McLuhan was to hold the chair of English until his death in 1980), three hospitals, and the most significant charitable organizations in the city (the Society of St. Vincent de Paul) and House of Providence created by Irish Catholic groups strengthened the Irish identity, transforming the Irish presence in the city into one of influence and power.
McGowan argues that between 1890 and 1920, the city's Catholics experienced major social, ideological, and economic changes that allowed them to integrate into Toronto society and shake off their second-class status. The Irish Catholics (in contrast to the French) strongly supported Canada's role in the First World War. They broke out of the ghetto and lived in all of Toronto's neighbourhoods. Starting as unskilled labourers, they used high levels of education to move up and were well represented among the lower middle class. Most dramatically, they intermarried with Protestants at an unprecedented rate.[4]
It was raised from a diocese to an archdiocese in 1898, which created the ecclesiastical province of Toronto, which included the suffragan dioceses of Hamilton, London, Saint Catharines, and Thunder Bay.[5]
As of 2015, the archdiocese has 221 parishes and 24 missions. 393 active diocesan priests and 405 religious priests serve 2,066,440 Catholics. There are also 43 brothers, 560 sisters and 136 permanent deacons.
The archdiocese's motto, Quis ut Deus?, means "Who is like God?" — the literal meaning of the name "Michael," the saint to whom the diocese's cathedral is dedicated.
On March 19, 2019, the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed a former altar boy to proceed with suing the Archdiocese of Toronto on grounds related to sex abuse.[6]
Geography
The Archdiocese of Toronto covers a geographic region of the Great Lakes area, which stretches from the shores of Lake Ontario north to Georgian Bay. The area is some 13,000 square kilometres, containing intensely urban and suburban regions and also small cities, towns and rural areas.
The Archdiocese of Toronto includes the City of Toronto, the most populous metropolis in the country and the growing regional municipalities of Peel, York and Durham that surround the city. As the regional municipalities expand, the northern section of the Archdiocese, Simcoe County, is also experiencing notable suburban growth.
The archdiocese is divided into four pastoral regions, each overseen by an auxiliary bishop, comprising 14 pastoral zones. The four pastoral regions which divide the Archdiocese are the Central, Northern, Eastern and Western Regions. The zones are made up of parishes within a geographical boundary.
^Murray Nicholson, "The Growth of Roman Catholic Institutions in the Archdiocese of Toronto, 1841-90," in Terrence Murphy and Gerald Stortz, eds, Creed and Culture: The Place of English-Speaking Catholics in Canadian Society, 1750 – 1930 (1993) pp 152-170
^Paula Maurutto, Governing Charities: Church and State in Toronto: Catholic Archdiocese, 1850-1950 (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001)
^Mark G. McGowan, The Waning of the Green: Catholics, the Irish, and Identity in Toronto, 1887-1922 (1999)
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