After the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Spain ceded all of Florida to Great Britain for the return of Cuba.

Given the antagonism of Protestant Great Britain to Catholicism, the majority of the Catholic population in Florida fled to Cuba.

Bishop John Moore of St. Augustine asked the Society of Jesus in 1889 to assume jurisdiction over all of South Florida.

The Vincentian Fathers established the St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, which would later by used by all the Florida diocese.

[11] In April 1998, a 53-year-old man informed Archbishop John C. Favalora that Symons had sexually abused him when he was an altar server decades earlier.

The Vatican immediately asked Bishop Robert N. Lynch of the Diocese of St. Petersburg to hear Symons' confession.

[20] On March 8, 2002, O'Connell admitted that he had molested at least two students of St. Thomas Aquinas Preparatory Seminary in Hannibal, Missouri, during his 25-year career there.

Deborah True, the former parochial administrator for Holy Cross Church in Vero Beach, was arrested for embezzlement in September 2022.

[27] In May 2002, Kelly Hoffman reported to the diocese that she had been sexually abused by Reverend Frank Flynn, starting at age 12 in 1978 and continuing for the next seven years.

The diocese had also received complaints about Flynn seducing adult women when they were at vulnerable moments in their lives; one alleged victim was grieving a deceased husband.

[28] Police in September 2002 arrested Reverend Elias F. Guimaraes of Our Lady Queen of Peace Mission Church near Delray Beach of soliciting sex from a minor.

Guimaraes had arranged online to meet a teenage boy at the beach, but he was arrested there in a police sting operation.

In January 2015, Reverend Jose Palimattom of Holy Name of Jesus Church in West Palm Beach, was arrested for possessing child pornography and showing images to a 14-year-old boy.

The family spoke to Reverend John Gallagher, also at Holy Name, who contacted the diocese and notified police.

The plaintiffs said that the diocese and the school failed to protect her from repeated sexual abuse by another student in an unsupervised classroom on campus.