Diocese of Las Vegas

The Diocese of Las Vegas is the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church responsible for the pastoral care of Catholics living in the Las Vegas metropolitan area and the broader region of southern Nevada. It provides sacramental life—including Mass, baptism, confirmation, marriage, and anointing of the sick—as well as religious education programs for children, adolescents and adults through its parish catechetical offices and Catholic schools. The diocese also operates a range of charitable and social service ministries, such as Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, which offers food assistance, housing support, immigration legal services and outreach to vulnerable populations. In addition to these direct services, the diocese supports vocations promotion, youth and young adult ministries, and various cultural and ethnic communities that enrich the life of the local Church. Its activities are carried out by a combination of ordained clergy, men and women religious, lay employees and countless volunteers who contribute to liturgical, administrative, educational and humanitarian efforts.

As a territorial subdivision of the Catholic Church, the diocese’s distinguishing attribute lies in its governance under a bishop who is appointed by the Pope and who exercises ordinary authority over the faithful within its boundaries, while being a suffragan see of the metropolitan archbishop of the Province of Las Vegas. The diocese functions as a non‑profit religious corporation recognized under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3), which grants it federal tax‑exempt status and allows it to receive tax‑deductible donations for its religious, educational and charitable works. In March 2023 the organization disclosed a cybersecurity incident in which personal information belonging to volunteers, parishioners, donors and other stakeholders was potentially compromised; it responded by engaging external cybersecurity experts, notifying appropriate law‑enforcement agencies, initiating contact with potentially affected individuals, establishing a dedicated call center to address questions, and subsequently reviewing and strengthening its data security protocols while confirming that employee payroll and benefits data remained stored on separate cloud‑based systems and were unaffected by the breach. The diocese also routinely undertakes internal audits and policy updates to safeguard sensitive information and to ensure compliance with both civil data‑protection regulations and canonical norms concerning the confidentiality of ecclesiastical records.

Structurally, the Diocese of Las Vegas is not a subsidiary of any corporate or secular entity; it is a juridical person of the Catholic Church whose ultimate ordinary is the Pope, with day‑to‑day administration directed by the diocesan bishop assisted by the diocesan curia, which includes the vicar general, chancellor, finance officer and other officials. The diocese belongs to the ecclesiastical province of Las Vegas, whose metropolitan see is the Archdiocese of Las Vegas, and whose suffragan sees include the Diocese of Reno and the Diocese of Salt Lake City, reflecting a cooperative relationship among the Catholic jurisdictions of the Intermountain West. Its principal offices and the bishop’s chancery are located in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America, where the administrative, financial and pastoral services that support the parishes, schools and ministries of the diocese are centralized.