In April 1931, the Claretian Provincial Secretary in Mexico City informed Corpus Christi Bishop Emmanuel Ledvina that they could no longer serve the parish in San Diego. He informed the bishop that the order simply did not have enough priests who could “speak and preach in correct English.”

The sisters “were wakened by the wind about 4 o’clock Sunday morning and found rain leaking into the building.” As the storm approached Corpus Christi North Beach on September 1919, the bay water began to fill the front yard close to the buildings of Spohn Sanitarium and the anxious sisters went to the chapel to pray.

The Jubilee Year of 2000 heralded new beginnings for the Diocese of Corpus Christi, but thankfully it was not the predicted Y2K disaster so feared by many. Instead there were “tidings of great joy” in the announcement of a new bishop and a new diocese.

As the world prepared for the end of the second millennium in 2000, hearts were filled with both joyous anticipation and a degree of fearful anxiety. Some predicted dire times, the failure of computers and all systems dependent on them, even the second coming of Christ. The people of the Diocese of Corpus Christi too were anxiously awaiting a change in its spiritual leader.

Having weathered a time of great changes and development, Bishop Thomas Drury was ready at the time of his retirement to hand over responsibilities to a younger man who had brought many experiences with him to the role of chief shepherd for the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

Following the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council, in 1967 Pope Paul VI restored the ancient practice of ordaining to the diaconate men who were not candidates for priestly ordination.

As the Second Vatican Council concluded in 1965, the Diocese of Corpus Christi faced a new era. The implementation of the reforms of Vatican II preoccupied the next decades of the Church in south Texas under the administration of Bishop Thomas J. Drury.

In November 1905 the remains of Father John Gonnard and three companions were transferred from the cemetery next to the parish church in Corpus Christi to Holy Cross Cemetery for final interment under the supervision of Msgr. Claude Jaillet. This was the final journey in this world for a young man who had traveled far from his home in France to nurture the Catholic faith in a rugged area called Texas.

The 1940s were years marked by great achievements and great sacrifices for the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

The 1920s was a time of challenge for Bishop Emmanuel B. Ledvina, the new young shepherd of the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

Each year on Feb. 22, the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the “Chair of St. Peter.” It might seem rather strange to even Catholics that a day would be dedicated to honoring a chair.

The first decade of the Diocese of Corpus Christi had been hard on its first shepherd, Bishop Paul Nussbaum, who suffered numerous painful experiences that slowly broke his stamina. What the diocese needed at this point was a strong worker, ready to build up people, structures and programs. The people of south Texas were not disappointed in the arrival of its next bishop, Emmanuel Boleslaus Ledvina who came to be known as “the great builder.”

The Texas Historical Commission (THC) has recognized St. Joseph Cemetery in Beeville as a significant part of Texas history by awarding it an official Texas Historical Marker. The designation honors St. Joseph Cemetery as an important and educational part of local, state and national history.

According to Canon Law, “The sacrament of confirmation strengthens the baptized and obliges them more firmly to be witnesses of Christ by word and deed and to spread and defend the faith. It imprints a character, enriches by the gift of the Holy Spirit the baptized continuing on the path of Christian initiation, and binds them more perfectly to the Church.”

On April 3, Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey celebrated the annual Chrism Mass at Corpus Christi Cathedral with more than 100 priests of the diocese present to renew the promises they made at their ordination. The bishop also blessed the oils used for catechumens, the sick and those being confirmed, baptized or ordained.

Just one month after Woodrow Wilson took the reins of the United States government, the Vatican on April 4, 1913, named Father Paul Joseph Nussbaum to lead the new diocese. Bishop Nussbaum arrived in Corpus Christi on June 8, 1913 to a crowd excited by his presence and who witnessed his formal installation that evening followed by a splendid reception and banquet in his honor.

When he was ordained a bishop on May 20, 1913 to shepherd the newly erected Diocese of Corpus Christi, Father Paul Joseph Nussbaum, CP, was only 42 years old. He was a young and energetic bishop to serve a young and growing diocese during some very challenging years that rapidly aged him.

Whispers in the Loggia was not around in 1912 when a vacancy occurred in the bishop’s office of the Vicariate of Brownsville, but that did not stop Vatican watchers from speculating on who was next in line for the job.

Daniel Cardinal DiNardo of Galveston-Houston will celebrate the Centennial Jubilee Mass at the American Bank Center on March 26. It will not be the first time that a Prince of the Church celebrates the Eucharist in a public venue in Corpus Christi.

Daniel Cardinal DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston was the principal celebrant at the Centennial Jubilee Mass for the Diocese of Corpus Christi at the American Bank Center on March 26.

Bishop Mariano S. Garriga was born in the Vicariate of Brownsville, which became the Diocese of Corpus Christi, and went on to become the first native Texan to assume the episcopacy in the state. Three other men from the Diocese of Corpus Christi were also named bishops, including Raymundo Peña, James Tamayo and Daniel Flores. All three served as bishops in dioceses that were created from the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

The four living Bishops of Corpus Christi are dynamic men still involved in evangelization. Bishop Emeriti Rene H. Gracida and Edmond Carmody are frequently seen and welcomed by the people at various diocesan functions; they often celebrate Masses on special occasions.

Each of the eight men who have guided the Diocese of Corpus Christi brought special gifts and priorities, which shaped and enriched the diocese and helped to move its mission forward.

It was a large territory that radiated from the frontier town of San Diego north to the Nueces River, to 20 miles south of Concepcion at Baluarte Creek—100 miles from north to south, and from Banquete to 40 miles west of San Diego—60 miles across.

Pope Benedict XIV, who served in the first half of the eighteenth century, described a diocesan synod as “A lawful assembly convoked by the bishop, in which he gathers together the priests and clerics of his diocese and all others who are bound to attend it, for the purpose of doing and deliberating concerning what belongs to the pastoral care.”

Bishop Wm. Michael Mulvey’s efforts towards diocesan renewal got a boost at the Centennial Jubilee Formation Conference on March 26 when Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo and a group of bishops from throughout Texas provided guidance to the faithful on various aspects of pastoral care.

Sister Mary Xavier Holworthy, IWBS is widely known as the historian of the Diocese of Corpus Christi. She was not only a historian but was a legend in her own right.

Noted Catholic historian Carlos Castañeda observed about the Vicariate of Brownsville, “Compared with the other Texas dioceses, the Vicariate was poorer in wealth, but richer in souls to save.”

It the winter of 1919, Corpus Christi was still reeling from the vicious hurricane that killed nearly 250 of its residents and demolished more than half the town. Though still too young to be ordained to the priesthood, Charles Joseph Taylor was assigned to preach his first sermon at midnight Mass that Christmas at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“The vicariate is poor, very poor, so much so that in Laredo the best parish, the priest cannot have a regular monthly salary,” wrote Bishop Peter Verdaguer Y Prat to a priest who asked to come into his jurisdiction.

Most of south Texas was part of The Diocese of Brownsville, before 1912, when The Diocese of Corpus Christi was established.

During Bishop John Mary Odin's first years serving as bishop, the Republic of Texas had experienced numerous challenges—multiple brief occupations by Mexican forces, the threat of bankruptcy, the regular rounds of disease, serious crop failures and the usual Gulf storms.

The area that became the Diocese of Corpus Christi was caught up in two wars of independence within a period of less than 20 years.

The story of the Catholic family in south Texas began with arrival of European explorers in the 1500s. While exploration offered the promise of wealth and fame to many, to the Franciscan missionaries, it was an opportunity to plant the seeds of faith in a new field.