The diocese over the parish: Fort Wayne–South Bend

ERECTED JANUARY 8, 1857 · RENAMED 1960 · BISHOP RHOADES FROM 2010

St. Pius X stands inside a diocese older than the township's churches: the Diocese of Fort Wayne was erected on January 8, 1857, by Pope Pius IX, carved from the Diocese of Vincennes, which had held all Indiana until then, with John Luers as its first bishop. Its cathedral is the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Fort Wayne, dedicated December 8, 1860, with Saint Matthew's Cathedral in South Bend as co-cathedral. In 1960 Pope John XXIII renamed the see the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, the name it carries today across fourteen counties of northern Indiana. The bishops who touch this ground's record directly are two. John Francis Noll, bishop from 1925 to 1956, is the ordinary who gave the June 18, 1954 permission for the Fir Road parish — an act of the old Diocese of Fort Wayne, two years before the parish's establishment and six before the diocese took South Bend into its name. Kevin C. Rhoades, appointed November 14, 2009 and installed January 13, 2010, the see's ninth bishop, dedicated the present St. Pius X church on March 25, 2017, named the parish one of the diocese's nine Jubilee churches for the Holy Year 2025, and holds the see as of November 2026 — the dated present state of the diocese within which every Catholic fact in this section sits.

Sources:

1. Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, diocesan record — erection January 8, 1857 from the Diocese of Vincennes; first bishop John Luers; the 1960 renaming; Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades appointed November 14, 2009, installed January 13, 2010.
2. Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Fort Wayne — dedicated December 8, 1860; Saint Matthew Cathedral, South Bend, as co-cathedral; Today's Catholic, December 2010 sesquicentennial account and March 2, 2025 Jubilee churches account.
3. Indiana State Library, Church Records on Microfilm (Divita) — the Indiana diocesan succession: Vincennes 1834–1857, Fort Wayne 1857–1960, Fort Wayne–South Bend from 1960.