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ERECTION, NAME, CATHEDRALS, PRESENT BISHOP AS OF NOVEMBER 2026 · BOUNDARY BY DESIGN
Why this article is boundary size is stated first: on the banked religion record no Catholic parish, mission or station was ever seated in the town of Osceola or in Penn Township. The diocese is therefore this ground's governing Catholic frame from outside, and it is told whole at exactly that size — no parish history is imported.
The course. The Diocese of Fort Wayne was erected on 8 January 1857 by Pius IX, from territory of the Diocese of Vincennes, with John Henry Luers as first bishop (consecrated at Cincinnati, 10 January 1858; one older Catholic-directory printing gives the erection as 22 September 1857, the date of Luers's appointment brief — the two dates are printed here whole and not merged: 8 January is the erection date the diocese and the Notre Dame archives carry). St. Augustine's, Fort Wayne, served first as cathedral; after its destruction by fire in 1859, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was dedicated on 8 December 1860 and remains the primary cathedral. The succession runs Luers (1857–1871), Joseph Dwenger (1872–1893), Joseph Rademacher (1893–1900), Herman Joseph Alerding (1900–1924) — author of The Diocese of Fort Wayne, 1857–1907 — John Francis Noll (1925–1956), Leo A. Pursley (1956–1976), William E. McManus (1976–1985), John M. D'Arcy (1985–2009), and Kevin C. Rhoades (appointed 14 November 2009, installed 13 January 2010). In 1960 John XXIII renamed the see the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, and St. Matthew's in South Bend stands as co-cathedral. The diocese covers fourteen counties including St. Joseph and Elkhart.
As of November 2026 the bishop is Kevin C. Rhoades, the ninth bishop, in post since 2010 — the present holder named at the date this build requires. For a Penn Township Catholic, the lived diocese is its neighbouring parishes — Mishawaka's and South Bend's, whose registers the county genealogical collections hold — and those parishes are their own cities' whole, at pointer here.
Sources:
- Diocese of Fort Wayne Collection, ArchivesSpace, University of Notre Dame (erection, succession, 1960 title change), read November 2026; Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Fort Wayne (dedicated 8 December 1860, after the 1859 fire).
- Catholic Directory / Catholic Encyclopedia Fort Wayne entry (the 22 September 1857 printing) — carried as a conflict, not merged.
- Banked basis for boundary size: Churches & Religion, “The Catholic test — no parish seated in the town or township.”