The Diocese of Worcester (Latin: Diœcesis Wigorniensis)is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in central Massachusetts in the United States. The diocese consists of Worcester County. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Boston. The patron saint of the diocese is Paul the Apostle.

The mother church of the Diocese of Worcester is the Cathedral of Saint Paul in the city of Worcester. The fifth and current bishop is Robert McManus.

Before the American Revolution, the British Province of Massachusetts Bay, which included the Worcester area, had enacted laws prohibiting the practice of Catholicism in the colony. It was even illegal for a priest to reside there. To gain the support of Catholics for the Revolution, colonial leaders were forced to make concessions to them. Massachusetts enacted religious freedom for Catholics in 1780.

After the Revolution ended in 1783, Pope Pius VI want to remove American Catholics from the jurisdiction of the Diocese of London. He erected in 1784 the Prefecture Apostolic of the United States, encompassing the entire territory of the new nation. Pius VI created the Diocese of Baltimore, the first diocese in the United States, to replace the prefecture apostolic in 1789.

Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Boston in 1808 from the Diocese of Baltimore. The new diocese included all of New England in its jurisdiction. In the 1820s, Irish immigrants began arrived in Worcester Country to work on the railroads and construct the Blackstone Canal. St. John's Church was established in 1834 in the City of Worcester. It is the oldest surviving Catholic church in New England outside of Boston.

The College of the Holy Cross was founded in Worcester by Bishop Benedict Fenwick of Boston in 1843. Fenwick had tried to build the college in Boston, but was thwarted by Protestant politicians running the city. He finally decided to locate it in Worcester on existing church property.

In 1870, Pope Pius IX created the Diocese of Springfield from the Diocese of Boston, including Worcester County. The Worcester area would remain part of the Diocese of Springfield for the next 80 years.

Pope Pius XII erected the Diocese of Worcester on March 7, 1950. He removed Worcester County from the Diocese of Springfield in Massachusetts to created the new diocese. Pius XII designated the Church of St. Paul as the cathedral of the new diocese and appointed Auxiliary Bishop John Wright of Boston as the first bishop.

In 1959, Pope John XXXIII appointed Wright as bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh and named Bishop Bernard Flanagan of the Diocese of Norwich as his successor. In 1968, Timothy Harrington was appointed as an auxiliary bishop of the diocese by Pope Paul VI. In 1973, the diocese joined the Worcester County Ecumenical Council, a predominantly Protestant organization.

After Flannagan's retirement in 1983, Pope John Paul II appointed Harrington as the new bishop of Worcester. Harrington retired in 1994 and John Paul II appointed Bishop Daniel Reilly from Norwich to succeed him. During his tenure in Worcester, Reilly reopened St. Joseph Parish but merged it with Notre Dame des Canadiens Parish in Worcester. He raised over $50 million for his Forward in Faith campaign to place the diocese in a stable financial condition.

When Reilly retired in 2004, John Paul II appointed Auxiliary Bishop Robert McManus from the Diocese of Providence to replace him.

McManus in 2007 criticized the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester for renting out "sacred space" to the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy for workshops. He said that the Alliance taught subjects that violated Catholic teachings. In October 2007, he stated that Holy Cross might lose its designation as a Catholic institution due to this action. Holy Cross President Michael C. McFarland said that the college had contractual obligations to the Alliance and would not cancel its agreement with them.

Lowe B. Dongor was indicted in September 2011 on processing child pornography and stealing money from St. Joseph’s Parish in Fitchburg to send to his family in the Philippines. After briefly fleeing to the Philippines, Dongor returned to Worcester, where he pleaded guilty and received five years of probation.

In April 2012, McManus asked Anna Maria College in Paxton, Massachusetts, to rescind an invitation to activist Victoria Kennedy to speak at its commencement ceremony, citing her views on abortion rights for women and same sex marriage. In May 2012, the college agreed to disinvite Kennedy, but also disinvited McManus, stating that his presence at the ceremony would be a "distraction".

In June 2012, diocesan officials declined to sell Oakhurst, an historic mansion in Northbridge, Massachusetts used as a retreat center, to James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, a married gay couple. In September 2012, the couple sued McManus and the diocese for discrimination. They cited an email in which church officials said that McManus wanted to stop the sale "because of the potentiality of gay marriages there." In October 2012, the diocese sold the property to a different buyer.

McManus was arrested in 2013 in Narragansett, Rhode Island, for drunken driving, leaving the scene of an accident, and refusing a chemical sobriety test. At 10:30 pm that evening, McManus had collided with another vehicle, then drove away from the scene. The other driver followed him and called the police. They arrested McManus 20 minutes later at his family home in Narragansett, at which point he refused a DUI chemical test. McManus later pleaded guilty to refusing to take the test, which resulted in a loss of license for six months, 10 hours of community service and a $945 fine.

In 2017, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the three secrets of Fátima in Portugal, McManus consecrated the diocese to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Shrine of Mary, Mother of Persecuted Christians was opened in Clinton in 2022. The shrine was installed with help from Nasarean.org, an organization founded by Benedict Kiely which advocates for Christians facing persecution in the Middle East.

In June 2022, McManus decreed that the Jesuit Nativity School of Worcester could no longer call itself a Catholic school or celebrate mass on its premises. In March 2022, McManus told the school to take down Black Lives Matter and Gay Pride flags from its facility; the school refused to do it. After hundreds of Holy Cross College students signed a petition asking the administration to bar McManus from their commencement ceremony due to his action, McManus voluntarily decided not to attend.

As of 2023, McManus is the current bishop of Worcester.

In 1995, Phil Saviano settled a lawsuit with the Diocese of Worcester, which after attorney fees amounted to $5,700. He alleged being sexually molested by David A. Holley, a priest at St. Denis Catholic Church in Douglas for one year during the 1970s. Two years before the legal action, in 1993, Saviano had read that Holley had been convicted of child sexual penetration of several boys in Alamogordo, New Mexico and sentenced to 275 years in prison. In August 1997, the Dallas Morning News released a 1968 letter sent by Bishop Flanagan to Jerome Hayden, a Catholic therapist in Holliston. In his letter, Flanagan stated that Holley:

"...has been ... [accused of] molesting teenage boys on at least two occasions—most recently in a hospital from which he has been barred—and with carrying around and showing to these boys pornographic magazines and books. Although the ... [accusations] were established beyond any doubt in the judgment of the priests who assisted me in the investigation as well as myself, Father has denied any wrongdoing."

In 1970, the diocese transferred Holley for treatment to the Seton Institute in Baltimore, Maryland without notifying law enforcement. After his treatment was finished, Flanagan refused to let Holley return to Worcester. Holley eventually ended up in dioceses in Texas and New Mexico.

In 2013, Eran J. McManemy, one of Holley's victims in New Mexico, sued the Diocese of Worcester for allowing Holley to serve in other parts of the United States while knowing he was a pedophile. In May 2020, the Albuquerque Journal reported that the Diocese of Worcester was being sued by another Holley victime from New Mexico. The lawsuit, which named other dioceses in which Holley served, stated that the Diocese of Worcester deserved "most of the blame."

In October 2020, Bishop McManus and the diocese were named in a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by a former parishioner. The plaintiff alleged that Thomas E. Mahoney, a diocesan priest, had groomed and abused him and other boys in the early 1970s in Worcester and Boylston. The lawsuit accused the diocese of failing to stop Mahoney's alleged crimes. After the lawsuit was filed, McManus suspended Mahoney, already retired, from any ministerial duties.

In December 2022, Nicole Bell, sued the diocese, claiming that she and other women had been sexually abused by William Riley, the food for the poor coordinator at St. John’s Catholic Church. She said that in the early 2010's Riley would coerce her into having sex with him. Bell accused the diocese and the pastor of St. John's of covering up for Riley. The diocese suspended Riley after receiving the complaint and he quit soon after that.

The diocese in February 2023 release a list of 173 credible accusations of sexual abuse against clergy in the diocese. The list did not include the names of accused clergy.

1. John Joseph Wright (1950-1959), appointed Bishop of Pittsburgh and later Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy (elevated to Cardinal in 1969)
2. Bernard Joseph Flanagan (1959-1983)
3. Timothy Joseph Harrington (1983-1994)
4. Daniel Patrick Reilly (1994-2004)
5. Robert Joseph McManus (2004–present)

• Timothy Joseph Harrington (1968-1983), appointed Bishop of Worcester
• George Edward Rueger (1988-2005)

Michael Wallace Banach, appointed Apostolic Nuncio and Titular Archbishop in 2013

In 2004, Bishop Reilly grouped parishes into "clusters". The purpose of this system is to allow communities to come together for regional events. Also, priests may substitute for one another at a particular parish.

Parish	City/Town	Pastor/Administrator	Associate Pastor/Vicar
Annunciation Parish	Gardner	Victor Sierra	Thiago Ibiapina
St. John Paul II	Southbridge	Carlos Ardilla	Peter Bui
Blessed Sacrament	Worcester	Thomas Landry
Christ the King	Worcester	Thomas J. Sullivan
Divine Mercy	Blackstone	John Larochelle
Holy Cross	Templeton (East Templeton)	Patrick Ssekyole
Saint Joseph - Saint Stephen	Worcester	Robert K. Johnson	Cleber dePaula
Holy Family of Nazareth	Leominster	José A. Rodriguez
Holy Trinity	Harvard/Bolton	Terence T. Kilcoyne
Immaculate Conception	Lancaster	Thomas H. Hultquist
Immaculate Conception	Worcester	Edwin Montaña
Immaculate Heart of Mary	Winchendon	Henry Ramirez
Mary, Queen of the Rosary	Spencer	William Schipper
North American Martyrs	Auburn	Frederick Fraini, III
Our Lady Immaculate	Athol	Thien Nguyen
Our Lady of Częstochowa	Worcester	Ryszard Polek	Edward Michalski
Our Lady of Good Counsel	West Boylston	Steven M. Labaire
Our Lady of Hope	Grafton	Anthony Mpagi	Derek Mobilio
Our Lady of Mount Carmel And Our Lady of Loreto Parish	Worcester	F. Stephen Pedone
Our Lady of Lourdes	Worcester	James B. O'Shea
Our Lady of Mercy (Maronite Eparchy of Brooklyn)	Worcester	Alex Joseph
Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Melkite Eparchy of Newton)	Worcester	Bryan McNeil
Our Lady of Providence	Worcester	Jonathan Slavinskas
Our Lady of the Angels	Worcester	Mark Rainville
Our Lady of the Assumption	Millbury	Daniel R. Mulcahy
Our Lady of the Lake	Leominster	Kenneth Cardinale
Our Lady of the Rosary	Worcester	Patrick J. Hawthorne
Our Lady of Vilna (historically Lithuanian, currently Vietnamese)	Worcester	Peter Tam M. Bui
Prince of Peace	Princeton	James J. Caldarella
Sacred Heart of Jesus	Hopedale	William C. Konicki
Sacred Heart of Jesus	Milford	Richard A. Scioli	Gregory J. Hoppough (weekends)
Sacred Heart of Jesus	Webster	Adam Reid
Sacred Heart-St. Catherine of Sweden	Worcester	Erik Asante
St. Aloysius	Gilbertville	Richard A. Lembo
St. Aloysius-St. Jude	Leicester	John M. Lizewiski
St. Andrew Bobola (Polish)	Dudley	Krzysztof Korcz
St. Andrew the Apostle	Worcester	Francis J. Scollen
St. Ann	Oxford (North Oxford)	James Boulette	David Cotter
St. Anna	Leominster	Carlos Ruiz
St. Anne	Shrewsbury	Walter Riley	Paul T. O'Connell (Senior Priest)
St. Anne	Southborough	Albert Irudayasamy
St. Anne & St. Patrick (run by Assumptionists)	Sturbridge (Fiskedale)	Luc Martell
St. Anthony of Padua	Fitchburg	Juan Ramirez
St. Anthony of Padua	Dudley	Daniel Moreno
St. Augustine Mission	Hardwick (Wheelwright)	Richard A. Lembo
St. Bernadette	Northborough	Ronald G. Falco
St. Bernard @ St. Camillus de Lellis Church	Fitchburg	Joseph M. Dolan
St. Boniface	Lunenburg	Charles Omolo
St. Brigid	Millbury	Daniel R. Mulcahy Jr.
St. Cecilia	Leominster	James Moroney	Paul Shaughnessy, S.J.
St. Christopher	Worcester	Stanley F. Krutcik
St. Columba	Paxton	Stephen Lundrigan
St. Denis	Ashburnham	Andres Araque
St. Denis	Douglas	Miguel Pagan
St. Edward the Confessor	Westminster	Juan Herrara
St. Francis of Assisi	Athol	Thien Nguyen
St. Francis of Assisi (Hispanic)	Fitchburg	Angel Matos
St. Francis of Assisi	South Barre	James B. Callahan
St. Gabriel the Archangel	Upton	Laurence V. Brault	Lucas LaRoche
St. George	Worcester	Edward D. Niccolls
St. Joan of Arc (Hispanic)	Worcester	Enoch Kyeremateng
St. John	Worcester	John F. Madden	Jean Robert Simbert Brice
St. John the Baptist	East Brookfield	Joe Rice	Donald C. Ouellette
St. John, Guardian of Our Lady	Clinton	James S. Mazzone	Julio Granados
St. Joseph	Auburn	Paul M. Bomba
St. Joseph	Charlton	Robert A. Grattaroti	Charles Monroe
St. Joseph	Fitchburg	Dario Acevedo
St. Joseph & St. Pius X	Leicester	Robert A. Loftus
St. Joseph	North Brookfield	Joe Rice	Donald C. Ouellette
St. Joseph Basilica	Webster	Grzegorz Chodkowski
St. Joseph the Good Provider	Berlin	Thomas Tokarz
St. Leo	Leominster	William E. Champlin
St. Louis	Webster	Javier Julio
St. Luke the Evangelist	Westborough	Diego A. Buritica	V. Sagar Gundiga
St. Mark	Sutton	Michael A. Digeronimo
St. Martin Mission	Templeton (Otter River)	Patrick Ssekyole
St. Mary	Holden (Jefferson)	Timothy M. Brewer
St. Mary	Shrewsbury	Michael F. Rose	José Carvajal
St. Mary	Uxbridge	Nicholas Desimone	Michael Hoye
St. Mary of the Hills	Boylston	Juan Echavarria
St. Mary the Assumption	Milford	Peter Joyce
St. Matthew	Southborough	James B. Flynn
St. Patrick	Rutland	James Boland
St. Patrick	Whitinsville	Tomasz J. Borkowski
St. Paul Cathedral	Worcester	Hugo Cano	Juan Parra
St. Peter	Northbridge	Michael Lavallee
St. Peter	Petersham	Thien Nguyen
St. Peter (Hispanic and African-American)	Worcester	Francis J. Scollen
St. Richard of Chichester	Sterling	James M. Steuterman
St. Roch	Oxford	James Boulette
St. Rose of Lima	Northborough	Juan Escudero
St. Stanislaus	Warren	Richard Reidy
St. Vincent de Paul	Templeton (Baldwinville)	Francis A. Roberge

• Immaculate Heart of Mary* – Harvard
• Notre Dame Academy – Worcester
• St. Bernard's High School – Fitchburg
• St. John's High School – Shrewsbury
• St Paul Diocesan Junior/Senior High School – Worcester
• Trivium School* – Lancaster

* Operates independently of the diocese

• Holy Name Central Catholic High School – Worcester
• Magnificat Academy – Warren
• Notre Dame Preparatory School – Fitchburg
• Saint Peter-Marian High School – Worcester
• St. Mary's Central Catholic High School – Worcester

• Robert McManus, bishop
• Daniel P. Reilly, bishop emeritus
• Richard F. Reidy, vicar general and moderator of the curia
• F. Stephen Pedone, judicial vicar
• Paul T. O'Connell, associate judicial vicar
• Raymond L. Delisle, chancellor of operations
• James Mazzone, director of priest personnel
• Paula Kelleher, vicar for religious
• James P. Moroney, diocesan office of liturgy
• Donato Infante III, director of vocations

• Ecclesiastical Province of Boston

• Official website
• Catholic Hierarchy Profile of the Diocese of Worcester
• 2012-2013 Worcester Diocesan Directory