of the diocese, the population of downtown Evansville was experiencing decline, and Assumption Cathedral was closed in 1965. The buildings were razed and the land sold for use in the construction of a new government complex (the federal building stands on the former Assumption site). Holy Trinity church, also downtown, and the home of the chancery since 1957, was named the pro-cathedral, or temporary cathedral. Although the church lost its status as cathedral, the old cathedra remains the most prominent feature within the oratory. 1965 also brought the retirement of Bishop Grimmelsman. Paul Leibold, an auxiliary bishop in Cincinnati, was appointed to lead the Evansville diocese. Bishop Leibold left the diocese just over three years later, though, when he was appointed archbishop of Cincinnati. Francis Shea of the Diocese of Nashville was named Evansville's third bishop in 1969. A new mission church was opened in the growing town of Santa Claus in 1967, and in 1970, St. Francis Xavier church in Vincennes, the oldest parish in Indiana, was named a basilica. Although the two nursing homes in the diocese, St. John Home in Evansville and the Providence Home in Jasper, both built expanded facilities in the 1970s, the strong growth of diocesan institutions generally abated in that decade. The recently opened high schools in Ferdinand and Loogootee were sold to the local public school districts. Rex Mundi and Magister Noster High Schools in Evansville were closed; Rex Mundi was sold to Ivy Tech Community College, and the chancery moved from Holy Trinity church to the former Magister Noster building. St. Benedict College in Ferdinand was closed, and the high schools in Vincennes consolidated. In Sullivan County, two mission churches, St. Ann in Shelburn and Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Dugger, closed in 1978 and 1982, respectively. Bishop Shea retired in 1989, and Gerald Gettelfinger, the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, was appointed the diocese's fourth bishop. Several parishes built new churches in the 1990s, and the mission in Santa Claus, the last in the diocese, became a parish. As the number of priests in the diocese began to decline and population shifted from rural areas to suburban areas, three rural parishes in Daviess County, St. Patrick in Corning, St. Mary in Barr Township, and St. Michael, north of Montgomery, were closed in 1997. St. Patrick and St. Mary became chapels, while St. Michael was razed. In 1999,