The Diocese of Dodge City (Latin: Dioecesis Dodgepolis) is a diocese of the Catholic Church in southwestern Kansas in the United States. Created in 1951, it is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. John Brungardt is the bishop.
== Territory ==
The Catholic Diocese of Dodge City comprises the following Kansas counties: Barber, Barton, Clark, Comanche, Edwards, Finney, Ford, Grant, Gray, Greeley, Hamilton, Haskell, Hodgeman, Kearny, Kiowa, Lane, Meade, Morton, Ness, Pawnee, Pratt, Rush, Scott, Seward, Stafford, Stanton, Stevens, and Wichita. The diocese encompasses 23,000 square miles.
== History ==
=== 1850 to 1950 ===
In 1850, Pope Pius IX erected the Apostolic Vicariate of Indian Territory East of the Rocky Mountains. This vicariate covered all of the Missouri Territory, which then included the Kansas region. Seven years later, Pius IX create a separate Apostolic Vicariate of Kansas, covering the newly created Kansas Territory. The first resident pastor within the Wichita area was appointed in 1873.
The Diocese of Leavenworth, covering all of Kansas, was erected in 1877 by Pius IX. He named Louis Mary Fink as its first bishop. Kansas grew so rapidly over the next ten years that Fink petitioned the Vatican to establish two new dioceses in the western part of the state. In 1887, Pope Leo XIII created two dioceses out of western Kansas. The northern counties became the Diocese of Concordia and the southern counties the Diocese of Wichita. The Dodge City area remained part of the Diocese of Wichita for the next 64 years.
=== 1950 to present ===
In 1951, Pope Pius XII erected the Diocese of Dodge City, taking its territory from the Diocese of Wichita. He named John Baptist Franz as the first bishop of Dodge City. At that time, Sacred Heart Church in Dodge City became the diocesan cathedral. Franz became the bishop of the Diocese of Peoria in 1959.
In 1960, Marion Forst was appointed as the second bishop of Dodge City. Pope Paul VI named Forst as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City in 1976.
To replace Forst, Eugene Gerber was appointed the third bishop of Dodge City by Paul VI in 1976. In 1982, Pope John Paul II named Gerber as bishop of Wichita. In 1983, Auxiliary Bishop Stanley Schlarman of the Diocese of Belleville became the fourth bishop of Dodge City. During his tenure in Dodge City, Schlarman recruited Burmese, Filipino, and Vietnamese priests; established a diocesan vocations office, a pastoral council, and an office of aging and parenting; and promoted the pastoral ministry training program and Cursillo movement. Schlarman retired in 1998.
Ronald Gilmore was named bishop of Dodge City in 1998. A new cathedral, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, was consecrated in 2001. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the diocese. Gilmore retired in 2010. As of 2026, the bishop of Dodge City is John Balthasar Brungardt from Wichita. He was named by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.
=== Sex abuse ===
In February 2019, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) announced that it had been investigating sex abuse allegations against all the Catholic dioceses in Kansas since November 2018. On August 14, 2020, KBI spokeswoman Melissa Underwood stated, "As of Aug. 7, we have had 205 reports of abuse and have opened 120 cases."In October 2019, the diocese released a list of ten priests and two seminarians with credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors.
== Bishops ==
=== Bishops of Dodge City ===
John Baptist Franz (1951-1959), appointed Bishop of Peoria
Marion Francis Forst (1960-1976), appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Kansas City in Kansas
Eugene John Gerber (1976-1982), appointed Bishop of Wichita
Stanley Girard Schlarman (1983-1998)
Ronald Michael Gilmore (1998-2010)
John Balthasar Brungardt (2011–present)
== References ==
== External links ==
Roman Catholic Diocese of Dodge City Official Site