The Diocese of Orlando (Latin: Dioecesis Orlandensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in central Florida in the United States. St. James Cathedral serves as the seat of the diocese. As of 2024, the bishop is John Gerard Noonan.

The Diocese of Orlando is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Miami.

The Diocese of Orlando encompasses about 9,611 square miles (24,890 km), spanning the Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Marion, Lake, Volusia, Brevard, Polk, and Sumter counties. The Kennedy Space Center and Walt Disney World are located within the diocese.

In 2010, the diocese contained 81 parishes, 10 missions, and 37 schools. It has two minor basilicas, Mary, Queen of the Universe Shrine, which ministers to Catholic tourists, and St. Paul's in Daytona Beach. In 2011, the estimated population of the diocese was approximately 400,923 Catholics. There were 208 priests, 87 religious nuns, and 181 permanent deacons.

The first Catholic presence in present-day Florida was the expedition of the Spaniard Juan Ponce de León, who arrived somewhere on the Gulf Coast in 1513. Hostility from the native Calusa people prevented him from landing. De Leon returned to the region with a colonizing expedition in 1521, landing near either Charlotte Harbor or the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River. His expedition had 200 men, including several priests.

In 1539, Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto, hoping to find gold in Florida, landed near present-day Port Charlotte or San Carlos Bay. He named the new territory "La Bahia de Espiritu Santo," in honor of the Holy Spirit. DeSoto led an expedition of 10 ships and 620 men. His company included 12 priests, there to evangelize the Native Americans. His priests celebrated mass almost every day. Unwilling to attack such a large expedition, the Calusa evacuated their settlements near the landing area. The De Soto expedition later proceeded to the Tampa Bay area and then into central Florida.

The Spanish missionary priest Luis de Cáncer arrived by sea with several Dominican priests in present-day Bradenton in 1549. Encountering a seemingly peaceful party of Tocobaga clan members, they decided to travel on to Tampa Bay. Several of the priests went overland with the Tocobaga while Cáncer and the rest of the party sailed to Tampa Bay to meet them.

Arriving at Tampa Bay, Cáncer learned, while still on his ship, that the Tocobaga had murdered the priests in the overland party. Ignoring advice to leave the area, Cáncer went ashore, where he too was murdered. The Spanish attempted to establish another mission in the Tampa Bay area in 1567, but it was soon abandoned.

The first Catholics in Eastern Florida were a group of Spanish Jesuits who founded a mission in 1566 on Upper Matecumbe Key in the Florida Keys. After several years of disease and turbulent relations with the Native American inhabitants, the missionaries returned to Spain. The Spanish attempted to establish another mission in the Tampa Bay area in 1567, but soon abandoned it.

In 1571, Spanish Jesuit missionaries made an brief, unsuccessful trip to Northern Florida. Two years later, in 1573, several Spanish Franciscan missionaries arrived in present-day St. Augustine. They established the Mission Nombre de Dios in 1587 at a village of the Timucuan people. By 1606, Florida was under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Havana in Cuba.

In 1565, the Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the founder of Saint Augustine and Governor of Spanish Florida, brokered a peace agreement with the Calusa peoples. This agreement allowed him to build the San Antón de Carlos mission at Mound Key in what is now Lee County. Menéndez de Avilés also built a fort at Mound Key and established a garrison.

San Antón de Carlos was the first Jesuit mission in the Western Hemisphere and the first Catholic presence within the Venice area. Juan Rogel and Francisco de Villareal spent the winter at the mission studying the Calusa language, then started evangelizing among the Calusa in southern Florida. The Jesuits built a chapel at the mission in 1567. Conflicts with the Calusa soon increased, prompting Menéndez de Avilés to abandon San Antón de Carlos in 1569.

By the early 1700s, the Spanish Franciscans had established a network of 40 missions in Northern and Central Florida, with 70 priests ministering to over 25,000 Native American converts.

However, raids by British settlers and their Creek Native American allies from the Carolinas eventually shut down the missions. Part of the reason for the raids was that the Spanish colonists gave refuge to enslaved people who had escaped the Carolinas. A number of Timucuan Catholic converts in Northern Florida were slaughtered during these incursions.

After the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Spain ceded all of Florida to Great Britain for the return of Cuba. Given the antagonism of Protestant Great Britain to Catholicism, the majority of the Catholic population in Florida fled to Cuba. St. Michael the Archangel Parish was established in 1781 in Pensacola.

After the American Revolution, Spain regained control of Florida in 1784 from Great Britain. In 1793, the Vatican changed the jurisdiction for Florida Catholics from Havana to the Apostolic Vicariate of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, based in New Orleans.

In the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, Spain ceded all of Florida to the United States, which established the Florida Territory in 1821. In 1825, Pope Leo XII erected the Vicariate of Alabama and Florida, which included all of Florida, based in Mobile Alabama.

In 1850, Pope Pius IX erected the Diocese of Savannah, which included Georgia and all of Florida east of the Apalachicola River. In 1858, Pius IX moved Florida into a new Apostolic Vicariate of Florida and named Bishop Augustin Verot as vicar apostolic. Since the new vicariate had only three priests, Vérot travelled to France in 1859 to recruit more. He succeeded in bringing back seven priests. Finally, in 1870 the Vatican converted the vicariate into the Diocese of St. Augustine,.

In 1898, St. Paul's Church was dedicated in Daytona Beach, the first Catholic church in that community. The first Catholic church in Brevard County was St. Joseph, dedicated in 1914.

Pope Paul VI erected the Diocese of Orlando on June 18, 1968, taking its present territory from the Diocese of St. Augustine and making it a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Miami. He appointed Monsignor William Borders of the Diocese of Baton Rouge as the first bishop of Orlando. At its formation, the new diocese consisted of 50 parishes with 128,000 Catholics.

In 1969, NASA launched the Apollo 11 moon mission from the Kennedy Space Center. According to a diocesan publication, Borders joked to Paul VI that he was now bishop of the moon, citing canon law about newly discovered territories. In 2019, a diocesan spokesperson stated that Bishop John Noonan did not consider himself bishop of the moon (or of the International Space Station, most of which was also launched from the space center).

During his tenure in Orlando, Borders oversaw the creation of parish councils and education boards, allowed the laity to serve as extraordinary ministers of the eucharist and formed a Sisters' Council for the nuns of the diocese. A Social Services Board correlated the work of already-existing agencies, and developed an educational program aimed at coordinating efforts in Catholic schools, campus ministry, and religious education. Borders also initiated social outreach centers to minister to migrant workers and the poor. In 1974, Paul VI named Borders as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The second bishop of Orlando was Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Grady from the Archdiocese of Chicago, appointed by Paul VI in 1974. He oversaw the establishment of 18 new parishes, the San Pedro Spiritual Development Center in Winter Park, and a mission office to forge a relationship with the Diocese of San Juan de la Maguana in the Dominican Republic. Grady also wrote a weekly column called "The Bishop's Corner" for the Florida Catholic weekly newspaper.

During Grady's tenure, the diocese saw significant growth. In 1976, St. Charles Borromeo Church in the College Park section of Orlando, the original cathedral, was destroyed by fire. St. James Church in Orlando was designated as the new cathedral. To provide ministerial outreach to vacationers visiting Walt Disney World and the Lake Buena Vista Resort, Grady created a parish in the Lake Buena Vista area. In 1984, he started construction of the Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe in the same area. The diocese also expanded ministries to migrants and minorities, founded a scholarship program for African American students, and built apartment buildings for the elderly. Grady resigned in 1989. At the end of his tenure in 1990, the Catholic population of the diocese had grown over 76% and the number of parishes had increased by more than a third.

Pope John Paul II named Auxiliary Bishop Norbert Dorsey of Miami as the next bishop of Orlando. In August 1993, the Shrine of Mary was dedicated. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops designated it as a national shrine in 2004. Dorsey's tenure saw further growth especially due to the growing Hispanic community. Radio Paz and health clinics for migrant and farm workers were established to minister to this community. Bishop Grady Villas, which opened in 2004, was constructed as a residential community in Orlando for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A cemetery at San Pedro Retreat Center for priests of the diocese was established. Dorsey retired in 2004.

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Wenski of Miami was selected by John Paul II to replace Dorsey as bishop of Orlando in 2004. Wenski convoked the first synod for the diocese in 2004. During his tenure, Wenski created six new parishes and two missions. A capital and endowment campaign raised $100 million. The Spanish language radio station, Buena Nueva FM, and a newspaper, El Clarin, were also started. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops held their spring convocation in the diocese in 2008. Wenski also designated 2008 as the "Year of Evangelization". He persuaded the Vatican to raise the Basilica of St. Paul in Daytona Beach and the Shrine of Mary to the status of minor basilicas. In 2010, the diocese began both a $150 million capital campaign and an extensive renovation of St. James Cathedral in Orlando.

Benedict XVI named Wenski as archbishop of Miami in 2010. Reverend Richard Walsh, pastor of St. Margaret Mary Parish in Winter Park, served as diocesan administrator, until Auxiliary Bishop John Noonan of Miami was appointed by the pope that same year. In June 2017, Noonan attended a memorial service at St. James Cathedral for victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.

In February 1995, a man sued the Diocese of Orlando, saying that he had been sexually abused as a youth by former priest Thomas Pagni. The plaintiff claimed that Pagni, then a mental health counselor in Brevard County, sexually assaulted him for several months in 1992. The boy's father witnessed the aftermath of the final assault in his son's bedroom. The plaintiff said that the diocese has concealed Pagni's history of sexual abuse as a priest and had paid for his college courses to enter the counseling field.

Pagni was arrested in March 1995 on charges of engaging in sexual activity with a minor and engaging in lewdness. Another victim was added to the criminal case in June 1995. In January 1996, Pagni pleaded no contest to the ten charges against him and was sentenced to ten years in prison.

In 2004, the diocese announced that it had removed from ministry 12 priests accused of committing sex abuse since the founding of the diocese in 1968.

Reverend Wladyslaw Gorak (also known as Walter Fisher) of the Church of the Resurrection in South Lakeland was arrested in October 2004 after breaking down the door at the residence of a female acquaintance and sexually assaulting her. Gorak had transferred to Orlando in 2000 from the Archdiocese of Newark. Despite him having a record of inappropriate behavior with women in Newark, the archdiocese did not mention that to diocesan officials in Orlando. Gorak was sentenced to four years of probation in 2007 The woman later sued the Archdiocese of Newark and received a settlement from them.

In November 1985, the families of four boys sued the diocese, claiming sexual abuse by Reverend William Authenrieth at St. Mary's Church in Rockledge. That same year, Bishop Grady permanently removed Authenrieth from ministry; he left the priesthood in 1986. In December 1987, the diocese settled the case with the Rockledge families for $3 million. In August 2014, an Orlando man sued Bishop Noonan and the diocese. The plaintiff claimed that he was sexually assaulted when an altar boy at All Souls Church in Sanford by Authenrieth between 1976 and 1978. The abuse took place in the church sacristy and Authenrieth's quarters. After receiving a complaint in 1978 from a parishioner that Authenrieth had molested his son, the diocese moved the priest to St. Mary's in Rockledge.

In August 2018, Noonan removed Reverend David Gillis, parochial administrator of the Our Savior Parish in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Gillis had been accused in a Pennsylvania investigation of sexual abuse of a minor years earlier. Authorities in Pennsylvania determined that the allegations against Gillis were false in September 2018.

1. William Donald Borders (1968–1974), appointed Archbishop of Baltimore
2. Thomas Joseph Grady (1974–1989)
3. Norbert Dorsey (1990–2004)
4. Thomas Wenski (2004–2010), appointed Archbishop of Miami
5. John Gerard Noonan (2010–present)

• Gregory Lawrence Parkes, appointed Bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee in 2012
• Stephen Douglas Parkes, appointed Bishop of Savannah in 2020

The Diocese of Orlando has five deaneries:

• Eastern Deanery (Volusia County) – Daytona Beach
• Southern Deanery (Brevard County) – Melbourne. In 2009, there were approximately 80,000 Catholics in Brevard.
• Northern Deanery (Marion, Sumter, and Lake Counties) – The Villages
• Western Deanery (Polk County) – Lakeland
• Central Deanery (Osceola, Orange, Seminole Counties) – Orlando

The diocese operates the San Pedro Center for the benefit of over 10,000 retreatants during 2008.

Diocese administration contains the following organizations: Office of Communication, Office of Advocacy and Justice, Office of Hispanic Ministry, Office of Family Life and Pastoral Care, Campus Ministry, Office of Finance and Accounting, Office of Human Resources, Buena Nueva FM 104.1, El Clarin, The Florida Catholic, IT, Media Center, Youth/Young Adults, Catholic Charities of Central Florida (including Pathways to Care), Bishop Grady Villas, Tourism Ministries, Mission Office, Propagation of the Faithm and Farmworker Ministry.

The diocese raised $10 million from its parishes in 2007 to support its ministries.

A total of 1,342 couples in the Diocese of Orlando participated in the marriage program under the Family Life Office in 2007. In 2008, the office prepared 1,000 people to enter the church. It trained 900 people to minister to the sick as of 2007. The diocese has a sister diocese in the Dominican Republic. Missioners built two churches and one community center there and the medical mission helped 2,000 patients in 2007.

An Apostleship of the Sea ministry is located at the Stella Maris Center at Port Canaveral for the benefit of sailors.

In 2007, Catholic charities in the Diocese of Orlando gave food and financial assistance to 23,000 families; helped over 290 refugee families and 4,000 people with immigration issues; and visited 2,000 prisoners. Pathways to Care assisted 290 homeless people with medical and shelter.

• Catholic Cemeteries of Central Florida oversees the three parish cemeteries: All Souls Catholic Cemetery, St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery, and St. Matthew Catholic Cemetery.
• Council of Catholic Women. In 2008, there were 32 such parish groups in the diocese. In 2007, they donated $240,759 to charitable causes and recorded an estimated 130,615 volunteer hours.

In 2007 the Diocese of Orlando had 12,116 elementary, and 2,687 high school students enrolled in the Catholic School District. The district employed 816 elementary and 221 high school teachers. The diocese supported the Catholic Campus Ministry at the University of Central Florida. The Superintendent of Schools was Henry Fortier.

In 2011, the diocese had 14,500 students in 38 schools. This included 32 elementary schools, five high schools and one special education school.

In 2008, the National Catholic Educational Association recognized the diocesan school board as "outstanding", the only diocesan board to be so recognized. At the same time, the Father Lopez Catholic High School board in Daytona Beach was simultaneously recognized as outstanding; also the only school board to be so designated.

From 2009 to 2010, the diocesan schools received more than $1 million in Title I and Title II funds through the federal government.

• Bishop Moore High School – Orlando
• Father Lopez Catholic High School – Daytona Beach
• Melbourne Central Catholic High School – Melbourne
• Santa Fe Catholic High School – Lakeland
• Trinity Catholic High School – Ocala

The Diocese of Orlando had 32 elementary schools in 2011. Since 1985,18 of those have been awarded the designation of National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence.

• Ascension Catholic School – Melbourne, 2003 and 1985 National Blue Ribbon School
• Divine Mercy Catholic School – Merritt Island, 2004 National Blue Ribbon School
• Holy Name of Jesus Catholic School – Indialantic, 2003 and 2000 National Blue Ribbon School
• Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School – Melbourne
• Our Saviour Catholic School, Cocoa Beach, 2004 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Joseph Parish School – Palm Bay, 2006 and 1993 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Mary Catholic School – Rockledge, 2004 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Teresa Catholic School – Titusville

St. Paul Catholic School – Leesburg

Blessed Trinity Catholic School – Ocala

• Good Shepherd Catholic School – Orlando, 2000 National Blue Ribbon School
• Holy Family Catholic School – Orlando, 2006 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Andrew Catholic School – Orlando, 2009 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School – Orlando, 2007 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. James Cathedral School – Orlando, 2005 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. John Vianney Catholic School – Orlando, 2005 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Margaret Mary Catholic School – Winter Park, 2006 National Blue Ribbon School

• Holy Redeemer Catholic School – Kissimmee
• St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School – St. Cloud

• Resurrection Catholic School – Lakeland, 2004 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Anthony Catholic School – Lakeland
• St. Joseph Catholic Academy – Lakeland
• St. Joseph Catholic School – Winter Haven

• All Souls Catholic School – Sanford, 2004 National Blue Ribbon School
• Annunciation Catholic Academy – Altamonte Springs, 2003 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Mary Magdalen Catholic School – Altamonte Springs, 2006 National Blue Ribbon School

• Basilica School of St. Paul – Daytona Beach
• Lourdes Academy – Daytona Beach, 2006 National Blue Ribbon School
• Sacred Heart Catholic School – New Smyrna Beach, 2008 National Blue Ribbon School
• St. Brendan Catholic School – Ormond Beach
• St. Peter Catholic School – DeLand

Morning Star School – Orlando

The Diocese of Orlando has 93 parishes. They include:

• All Souls – Sanford. 1,776 registered families; average attendance 1,700 each weekend.
• Corpus Christi – Celebration. 920 registered families; average attendance 1,700 each weekend.
• Most Precious Blood – Oviedo. 1,900 registered families; 2,200 average weekend attendance
• St. Faustina – Clermont. 700 registered families.
• St. Mark the Evangelist – Summerfield. 2,067 registered families.
• St. Mary – Rockledge. 1400 registered families. In 2002 the congregation opened a new church designed by architect Michael Graves.
• St. Philip Phan van Minh – Orlando. for people of Vietnamese descent

• Basilica of Mary, Queen of the Universe – Orlando. Benedict XVI raised it to a minor basilica in 2009.
• Basilica of St. Paul – Daytona Beach. Benedict XVI raised it to a minor basilica in 2006.

• Immaculate Heart of Mary's Hermitage – West Melbourne. a Roman Catholic Hermitage that receives its sacramental support from Ascension Catholic Community
• St. Jude Maronite Church – Orlando. a Catholic church under the jurisdiction of the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn (Maronite Catholic Church).

Spanish-language radio station Buena Nueva FM 104.1 subcarrier reached eight counties of the nine comprising the diocese and also broadcast on the Internet before going silent in 2017.

Florida Catholic newspaper is published 38 times a year. Diocesan circulation is 40,200, the highest in the Eccesiastical Province of Miami.

• Catholic Church by country
• Catholic Church hierarchy
• List of the Catholic dioceses of the United States

• Diocese of Orlando's website
• Immaculate Heart of Mary's Hermitage, West Melbourne
• Simulcast of Buena Nueva 104.1 FM Archived 2021-01-18 at the Wayback Machine