CHARLOTTETOWN, Diocese of. — In Canada. Capital of the smallest province of Canada (Prince Edward Island), C. is a suffragan of Halifax in Nova Scotia. It comprises as its territory the entire island of Prince Edward (5,656 sq. km.) and a county of the province of Quebec, namely the Magdalen Islands. In 1947, out of 51,107 inhabitants, there were 46,426 Catholics under the care of 79 diocesan priests and 5 religious, with 47 parishes, 12 missions with churches, 1 college, 10 academies for girls and 1 for boys, 3 hospitals, and 1 orphanage.
This territory, which the Franciscans called the St. John Islands, began to be colonized by Europeans in 1719 when this and other islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence were ceded by France to the Count of Saint-Pierre. From then on, the Sulpicians (1721–23), the Franciscans (1724), and secular priests spread Catholicism there. However, the sacking of settlements and the deportation of inhabitants carried out by the English in 1758 left the island without resident priests until 1772, when Catholic Scottish emigration began under the guidance of the priest G. Macdonald. The colony progressed, and in 1819 the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide made it an apostolic vicariate suffragan of Quebec.
It included the territory of the present-day province of New Brunswick and was erected as a diocese on 11 August 1829 with its episcopal see at C. In September 1842, the territory of the civil province of New Brunswick was detached to form the Diocese of Saint John; in May 1852, Halifax was elevated to a metropolitan see, and C. became its suffragan along with the Diocese of Antigonish.