The Bureau and the Commission have shared common offices in Washington, D.C. since 1935[1] and were joined by the Catholic Negro-American Mission Board in 1980.
[2] In 2009, the three institutions adopted the Black and Indian Mission Office as a banner for their joint webpage.
It was founded as the Office of Catholic Commissioner for Indian Missions in 1874 with approval by J. Roosevelt Bayley, the Archbishop of Baltimore.
[4] Since 1887, the Commission for the Catholic Missions among the Colored People and the Indians has administered a national annual Lenten collection to support African American and Native American missions.
In 1884, the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore decreed the establishment of the Lenten collection and a commission of three bishops to administer it.