CAPO HAITIANO, DIOCESI di. - A town in the north of the republic of Haiti in the Antilles, and a suffragan diocese of Porto Principe, with an area of 8,000 sq. km. and a population of 485,000 Catholics out of 500,000 inhabitants. It has 130 churches, 26 parishes, 49 diocesan priests and 12 regulars (1948).
The city was founded by the Spaniards in 1679; it was first called Cabo Santo, then, under French rule, Cap. François, Cap-Henri (1803), and finally, when independence was declared (1804), C. H. The diocese was erected on 3 Oct. 1861, that is, after the Concordat of 28 March 1860 between Pius IX and the Republic of Haiti had made possible the establishment of the ordinary ecclesiastical hierarchy, with Porto Principe as metropolitan see. But the first bishop, Costante Maturino Hillion (who died archbishop of Porto Principe), was not enthroned until 1875. Porto Pace, whose erection as a diocese had likewise been decided in 1861, remained under the administration of the bishop of C. H. until 1928. On 25 June 1929 a decree of the Concistorial Congregation detached four parishes from the diocese and annexed them to the diocese of Gonaïves.