Holy Cross Provides Peace of Mind for Over 100 Years

Holy Cross is the only Catholic Diocesan cemetery serving San Diego County. As part of the ministry of the Church, Holy Cross serves families with full Catholic burial services, including the sacred privilege of the Catholic liturgy for burial. Holy Cross was dedicated in 1919. With over 40 acres at the time, it became the answer to the demands of Catholic families throughout San Diego County.

Mrs. Henrietta Keith became the first burial on Feb. 1, 1919. Since then, over 65,000 people have been interred in consecrated ground. In 1939 the Chapel Mausoleum was built, a three-story addition was completed in 1996 creating hundreds of spaces for caskets and urns. In 2001 our Holy Apostles Garden Mausoleum was expanded. We continue to offer all forms of ground burial and entombment, including the burial and inurnment of cremated remains.

Our experienced staff offers a welcoming approach to families as they bereave the loss of their loved ones and plan for burial. As Catholic Christians, we believe the promise of eternal life trumps death. Since 1919, Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery provides peace of mind and offers families continuity, sacred tradition and respectful care.

Former Catholic Cemeteries in San Diego

Calvary Cemetery (Now Known As Calvary Pioneer Memorial Park)
1501 Washington Place
San Diego, CA  92103

The former Calvary Catholic Cemetery is now part of what is known as Calvary Pioneer Memorial Park in the Mission Hills area of San Diego. It was primarily in use between 1875 and 1919. Occasional burials continued until the 1960s.  In the early 1970s the cemetery was converted to a public park and the gravestones were removed, but the bodies remained. Several of the gravestones were clustered together in the southeast corner of the park as a central memorial. The remainders were removed to Mount Hope Cemetery where several of the better preserved headstones were set up as a second memorial in the southwest corner of that cemetery. The exact number of people buried at Calvary Cemetery is not known because most records were destroyed during a fire in the caretaker’s building during the 1930s.

St. Therese of Carmel Cemetery
4355 Del Mar Trails Road
San Diego, CA  92130

The cemetery is located on the south side of the Church between highway 56 and the Church.  In 1894 Mother Mary Michael Cummings donated the cemetery and the adjacent 10 acres to Most Rev. George Montgomery, Bishop of Los Angeles. In 1937, Most Rev. Charles Buddy, Bishop of San Diego, obtained the property from the Los Angeles Diocese. The cemetery has 83 recorded burials according to records kept at St James Catholic Church in Solana Beach.  The land is owned by the Catholic Diocese of San Diego.