BUFFALO, DIOCESI di. - In the State of Nuova York, of which it is a suffragan diocese. Separated from this diocese on 23 April 1847, from which it received approximately one third of its territory, B. became a suffragan of Nuova York in 1850. It was divided for the first time in 1868 to form the diocese of Rochester, and again in 1896 to cede another four counties to the latter; at present its territory comprises the counties of Erie, Niagara, Genesee, Orleans, Chautauqua, Wyoming, Cattaraugus, and Allegany, with an area of approximately 19,037 sq. km. Catholicism was introduced among the Indians of the region in the 17th century through the work of the Jesuits and Franciscans of Canadà, but colonization by Catholic whites did not begin until the early 19th century, when Alsatian immigrants built the first Catholic church in B. in 1831.
Statistics: 635,204 Catholics out of approximately 1,298,035 inhabitants; 241 parishes, with 318 secular and 329 regular priests (1948); one university (Niagara). The much-frequented national shrine of Lackawana, situated in this diocese and dedicated to S. Maria della Vittoria, was raised to the rank of minor basilica on 20 July 1926.
BIBL. J. G. Shea, Hist. of the Cath. Church in the United States, IV, Nuova York 1892; T. Donohue, s. V. in The Cath. Enc., III, pp. 37-40; Anon., ibid., suppl., p. 132 ff.; J. H. O'Donnell, The Cath. Hierarchy of the United States 1790-1922, Washington 1922, pp. 82-84; AAS, 18 (1926), pp. 86-88; D. C. Shearer, Pontificia americana, a documentary History of the Cath. Church in the United States 1784, Washington 1933, pp. 239-40, 259; E. Van Cauwenbergh, s. V. in DHG, X, cols. 1082 ff.; The Official Cath. Directory, 1947, II, pp. 359-72. Corrado Morin