Diocese of Cleveland celebrates its 170th anniversary on April 23

The Diocese of Cleveland will mark the 170th anniversary of its establishment at the noon Mass on April 24 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland.

When the diocese was established by Pope Pius IX in a papal bull issued on April 23, 1847, the city of Cleveland was only 51 years old. Ohio had become a state just 44 years earlier, in 1803,