From the Archives
By Mary Woodward
JACKSON – With all the excitement about electing our new pope and having that new pope be from the United States, I started thinking about all the popes who have had a connection to our diocese. In looking back to our establishment, 14 popes including Pope Leo XIV, have been in office – 10 Italians, one Pole, one German, one Argentine, and one American. How cool is that?!
Our diocese was established on July 28, 1837. The pope of that time was Gregory XVI, who was the supreme pontiff from 1831 to 1846. Not only would he have established our diocese, but he also would have appointed the first bishop, which usually comes along with the establishment of a diocese. His initial 1837 appointment went to a priest from Pittsburgh, who declined the opportunity to come to the frontier and build an entire diocese from the ground up.

Since they did not have email or fax capabilities in 1837, it took until 1841 for the Diocese of then Natchez to get its shepherd in the person of John Joseph Marie Benedict Chanche, SS. In our diocesan archive we have the original papal decreeing of establishment of the diocese and the papal bull appointing Bishop Chanche. We have the bulls for most all of our bishops down in the vault.
Following Gregory XVI, Pope Blessed Pius IX (1846-1878) appointed Bishop James Oliver VandeVelde, SJ, first to Chicago in late 1848, then to Natchez in 1853, to succeed Bishop Chanche who had died unexpectedly in July 1852. Bishop VandeVelde died of Yellow Fever in 1855 and Blessed Pius IX appointed Bishop William Henry Elder to succeed him in 1857.
Bishop Elder’s Bull is signed on the back by the consecrating bishops – Archbishop Francis Kenrick of Baltimore, Bishop John McGill of Richmond, and Bishop James Frederick Wood of the titular see of Antigonea. Antigonea was an ancient diocese that had been suppressed. At that time, Bishop Wood was co-adjutor to Philadelphia. Auxiliaries and Co-Adjutors are given a titular see because every bishop needs a diocese.
An interesting note about the Titular See of Antigonea is that 100 years after Bishop Ward, an auxiliary bishop of Krakow, Poland was named its bishop. That bishop was Karol Wojtyła future Pope St. John Paul II, who appointed Bishop William Houck in 1978 and Bishop Joseph Latino in 2003 as our ninth and tenth bishops respectively. St. John Paul II ordained Bishop Houck to the episcopacy on May 29, 1979, in Rome.
There is one more signature on Bishop Elder’s bull and it is quite a treasure. The Bishop of Philadelphia was present and signed the bull beneath the other three. This was none other than St. John Nepomucene Neumann, CSsR.
Pope Leo XIII (1878 – 1903), from whom the new pope Leo XIV takes inspiration and his name, appointed Bishop Francis Janssens in 1881 to succeed Bishop Elder, who had been appointed by Leo XIII as Archbishop of Cincinnati in 1880. Subsequently, Bishop Janssens was appointed as Archbishop of New Orleans by Leo XIII in 1888. Bishop Thomas Heslin was then appointed by Leo XIII as our fifth bishop in 1889.
In 1903, Pope St. Pius X was elected. St. Pius X would have been the pope while Bishop Gerow was in seminary in Rome from 1904-1909. As a seminarian, then Richard Gerow and his class met with St. Pius X.
St. Pius X appointed Bishop John Edward Gunn, SM, to be the sixth Bishop of Natchez in 1911. Benedict XV succeeded St. Pius X in 1914. It is interesting to note that two Benedicts, the XVth and the XVIth, served the office beautifully from 1914 – 1922 and 2005 – 2013, but neither appointed a bishop for our diocese.
After Bishop Gunn’s death in February 1924, Bishop Gerow, mentioned above, was appointed by Pope Pius XI (1922 – 1939). In late 1956, Pope Pius XII (1939 – 1958) appointed Bishop Joseph Brunini, our only homegrown bishop, as auxiliary to Natchez. Soon after this, Pius XII would have approved the renaming of the diocese to Natchez-Jackson in 1957.
When Bishop Gerow retired at age 81 in 1966, he was the first bishop to retire while in office. Pope St. Paul VI (1963 – 1978) then appointed Bishop Brunini as the eighth bishop of the diocese in 1968. Bishop Brunini had been serving as apostolic administrator since Bishop Gerow’s retirement in 1966.
St. Paul VI would have been the pope to divide Mississippi into two dioceses by splitting the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson into the Diocese of Jackson and the Diocese of Biloxi in 1977. St. Paul VI had appointed Bishop Joseph Howze as auxiliary in 1972. When the diocese was divided, St. Paul VI appointed Bishop Howze as the first Bishop of Biloxi.
Pope St. John XXIII (1958 – 1963) was too busy with his aggiornamento and calling the Second Vatican Council to name any bishops for our diocese. Pope Blessed John Paul I served only one month in 1978 from August to September.
Pope Francis (2013 – 2025) appointed our current chief shepherd, Bishop Joseph Kopacz, who will turn 75 in September of this year. God willing, it will be up to Pope Leo XIV to appoint our next bishop sometime after that.
Habemus papam!

(Mary Woodward is Chancellor and Archivist for the Diocese of Jackson.)