Roman Catholic Diocese of Osnabrück

Diocese of Osnabrück Dioecesis Osnabrugensis Bistum Osnabrück
St Peter's Cathedral, Osnabrück
Location
Country	Germany
Metropolitan	Archdiocese of Hamburg
Statistics
Area	12,573 km2 (4,854 sq mi)
Population - Total - Catholics	(as of 2004) 2,106,921 580,615 (27.6%)
Parishes	256
Information
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Rite	Latin Rite
Established	772
Cathedral	St. Peter's Cathedral
Secular priests	320
Current leadership
Pope	Francis
Bishop	Franz-Josef Hermann Bode
Metropolitan Archbishop	Sede Vacante
Auxiliary Bishops	Johannes Wübbe
Map
Map of Diocese of Osnabrück
Website
Website of the Diocese

The Diocese of Osnabrück is a diocese of the Catholic church in Germany; it was founded around 800. It was also a Prince-Bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire until 1803.

The Diocese was erected in 772 and it is certainly the oldest see founded by Charlemagne, in order to Christianize the conquered stem-duchy of Saxony. The first bishop of Osnabrück was Saint Wilho (785–804); the second bishop, Meginhard or Meingoz (804–33), was the real organizer of the see. Osnabrück diocese was originally a suffragan to the Archdiocese of Cologne (till 1824).

The temporal possessions of the see, originally quite limited, grew in time, and its prince-bishops exercised an extensive civil jurisdiction within the territory covered by their rights of immunity. The Prince-Bishopric continued to grow in size, making its status during the Reformation a highly contentious issue.

During the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, Osnabrück did not remain completely Catholic nor switch to Protestantism. Instead, each parish decided on its own which elements of Protestantism it took over. This unique state of affairs ended with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which froze the parishes at their religious status as of 1624. From then on, the bishops alternated between Lutheran and Catholic office holders. While the prince-bishopric was ruled by a Protestant bishop, the Archbishop of Cologne would oversee the exercise of the Catholic religion in Osnabrück.

The Protestant bishops were selected from the neighboring Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, with priority given to the cadets of what became the House of Hanover. The last Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück, the Lutheran Prince Frederick of Great Britain (1764–1803), was made Bishop in 1764 when he was only 197 days old. At the time, he was the younger of two sons of George III, giving him the strongest claim to election as prince-bishop.