The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson (, ) is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the southwestern region of the United States. It is a suffragan see of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The diocese was recently led by its seventh bishop, Most Reverend Gerald Frederick Kicanas, who retired on October 3, 2017. Its current diocesan bishop is Most Rev. Edward Weisenburger. The See city for the diocese is Tucson, Arizona, and its cathedral parish is the St. Augustine. Another church of special interest is the Mission San Xavier del Bac, also in Tucson. Extent It comprises nine counties of the state of Arizona, making it the fifth largest diocese in the continental United States in terms of area. The counties are Gila, Graham, Greenlee, Pinal (excluding the territorial boundaries of the Gila River Indian Community), Cochise, Santa Cruz, Pima, Yuma, and La Paz. History Pope Pius IX established the Apostolic Vicariate of Arizona in 1868, taking its territory from the then Diocese of Santa Fe. The Diocese of Tucson was canonically erected by Pope Leo XIII as a diocese on May 8, 1897. It lost territory thrice: on 3 March 1914 to establish the Diocese of El Paso, on 16 December 1939 to establish the Diocese of Gallup and on 28 June 1969 to establish the Diocese of Phoenix. Sexual abuse scandal The Diocese of Tucson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2004, becoming the second Catholic Diocese to do so in United States history. The Diocese of Tucson reached an agreement with the victims of sex abuse, which the bankruptcy judge approved on June 11, 2005, specifying terms that included allowing the diocese reorganization to continue in return for a $22.2 million settlement. In 2013, Stephanie Innes of the Arizona Daily Star labeled the Diocese as a "dumping ground" for abusive priests after it was revealed that several accused clergy from other Catholic Dioceses were sent to the Diocese of Tucson when accusations of sex abuse started gaining traction. In 2018, Tucson Bishop Edward J. Weisenburger confirmed that 10 Catholic clergy who were accused of committing acts of sex abuse had been removed from the Diocese of Tucson "in the last decade." On December 31, 2020, a federal RICO lawsuit was filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson which alleged that the Diocese used the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los