The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The diocese was erected by Pope Pius IX on February 17, 1872 and originally comprised the entire state of Rhode Island and the counties of Bristol, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket in the state of Massachusetts. On March 12, 1904, those four counties were separated from the Diocese of Providence to form the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, leaving the Diocese of Providence with just the state of Rhode Island. The diocese is suffragan to the Archdiocese of Hartford and a part of the ecclesiastical province that includes that archdiocese and the suffragan dioceses of Bridgeport and Norwich. The Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul in Providence is the mother church of the diocese of Providence. The Most Reverend Thomas Joseph Tobin, former Bishop of Youngstown, Ohio, is the eighth, and current, Bishop of Providence.
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