In 1960, the diocesan chancellor, Monsignor Joseph L. Bernardin, proposed the organization of a diocesan archives. For the next fifteen years, seminarians devoted their summers to arranging and cataloging a 150-year accumulation of the diocese’s documentary records. The young chancellor later became Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago, an ardent supporter of archives, and the first episcopal moderator for the Association of Catholic Diocesan Archivists.
Today, we continue to arrange, describe, protect and preserve the diocese’s rich documentary heritage while making the records accessible in accordance with universally accepted archival principles and the norms of church law.
