CHIAPAS, DIOCESE of. — In the Republic of Mexico, suffragan of Antequera. It comprises the entire State of C., with an area of 73,000 sq. km. and a population of 630,000 inhabitants (half Indians and half whites or mestizos), of whom 615,000 are Catholics. The diocese is divided into 40 parishes and has 182 churches, with 27 diocesan priests and several religious. This scarcity of clergy is principally due to the religious persecution of past years; once it had subsided, the seminary was reopened after a long period of dispersal. The territory that now constitutes the diocese of C. belonged from 1526 to 1536 to the first diocese nominally established in Mexico, called Carolense; it then passed to the diocese of Guatemala, but as early as 19 March 1539, Paul III (Inter multiplices) erected it as an independent diocese. From its foundation, C. became an important center of evangelization, thanks to its second bishop, the Dominican friar Bartolomeo de las Casas, a strenuous defender of the Indians against the greed of the conquistadors, for which he earned the glorious appellation of « padre de los indios ».
The first missionaries were Dominicans and contributed greatly to raising the moral and civil level of the Indians, whom they gathered into villages, or reducciones, catechized, and taught trades and professions that they still practice today. The episcopal see is at S. Cristobal las Casas, formerly Ciudad Real, founded by Diego Mazariegos (1528), which possesses a fine cathedral and 19 other churches.