The Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge (Latin Dioecesis Rubribaculensis; French Diocèse de Bâton-Rouge; Spanish: Diócesis de Baton Rouge) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church spanning Ascension, Assumption, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, Tangipahoa, St. Helena, St. James, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana (civil) parishes, a total area of about in south central Louisiana. The diocese as of 2014 consists of 64 diocesan parishes, 2 ethnic apostolates, and 2 university chaplaincies served by a total of 106 priests (50 active and 21 retired diocesan priests, 24 active and 6 retired religious priests, and 5 priests of other jurisdictions), 70 permanent deacons, 3 transitional deacons, 16 lay male religious (brothers), 90 female religious (nuns and sisters), and 17 seminarians. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of New Orleans. The current bishop is Michael Duca. History The present-day Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge began with the work of French missionaries among the Native American peoples of the area. The first permanent church in the region was St. Francis Chapel of Pointe Coupée, built in 1738. Parishes were established at St. James in 1767, at St. Gabriel in 1769, at Donaldsonville in 1772, at Baton Rouge in 1792, and at Plattenville in 1793. The oldest church that still stands in its original form is the St. Gabriel Church in St. Gabriel, Louisiana. On 25 April 1793, Pope Leo XIII erected the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, subsequently renamed to the Diocese of New Orleans on 18 July 1826 and elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese on 19 July 1850. Establishment and growth On 22 July 1961, Pope John XXIII promulgated the bull Peramplum novae aureliae erecting the Diocese of Baton Rouge, taking its territory from the Archdiocese of New Orleans and making it a suffragan of the same metropolitan archdiocese. The pope designated St. Joseph Church in the see city, built in 1853-1855 and renovated many times since, as the cathedral church of the new diocese. A census conducted in the very first year of the diocese's operation revealed its membership to be 164,476 Catholics out of the total of 464,904 people reported by the U. S. Census Bureau in the federal census conducted in prior year. The first Bishop of Baton Rouge, Robert E. Tracy of New Orleans, Louisiana, organized the diocese in