CHILAPA, DIOCESE of. - In the republic of Mexico, suffragan of Città di Messico, erected by Pius IX on 16 March 1863 by the constitution Omnibus notum, having been separated from the archdiocese of Puebla. It embraces the whole State of Guerrero, with an area of 73,136 sq. km. and a population of approximately 700,000 inhabitants, of whom 695,000 are Catholics. The diocese is divided into 79 parishes, with 116 priests and a seminary (1948).
Within the diocese lies the town of Taxco, the oldest mining centre in Mexico (Real de minas). Founded in 1529, it still retains the character of the colonial period. Very famous is the parish church, a jewel of Mexican Baroque, built between 1753 and 1760 by the wealthy mine-owner José de la Borda, who spent 1,661,572 pesos on II. It possessed a monstrance, considered among the richest in the world, which passed to the cathedral of Città di Messico, then sacrilegiously removed by the revolutionaries; it may still be admired in Paris, in the treasury of Notre-Dame, which purchased it for one million francs, stripped of its 8,353 precious stones.