ROCHESTER, Minn. – The Catholic Diocese for southern Minnesota, headquartered in Winona since 1889, will relocate to Rochester in 2024. The announcement a made by new Bishop Robert Barron. Construction of an $8 million headquarters in Rochester will begin in the spring, Barron said. Discussions are under way, he said, on which of the 37-person administrative staff will choose to relocate. Barron noted that Rochester makes geographical sense because it’s more central in the 20 counties that comprise the Diocese. He said that Winona was logical as the diocesan headquarters in the 1890s as a river city and regional transportation and commercial center. Now, he said, Rochester has become the economic and cultural hub of the region. Sixty-five percent of the Diocese’s Catholics now live between Rochester and Mankato. Winona is at the eastern fringe of the Diocese, he said.
Diocesan offices
The new Catholic diocesan headquarters in Rochester will be called a “pastoral center.” The building will have a chapel, but its primary function will be diocesan offices. The diocesan headquarters being abandoned in Winona also is called a pastoral center.
Diocesan cathedrals
The main churches of the diocese will remain the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Winona and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Rochester, which somewhat awkwardly has been called a “co-Cathedral” since 2018 when the Diocese of Winona changed its name to the Diocese of Winona-Rochester.