CORPUS CHRISTI, DIOCESE OF. – A city in the State of Texas (USA) and the seat of a suffragan diocese of San Antonio. It comprises a territory of about 22,000 sq. km. in southern Texas.
In 1948, out of a population of 347,166, Catholics numbered 248,500 under the care of 54 diocesan priests and 79 religious priests; there are 68 parishes, 45 chapels, 93 missions, and 68 stations; 2 seminaries and 2 high schools. The diocese also has 14 religious institutes for women and 6 for men, namely Benedictines (Subiaco Abbey, Arkansas), Franciscans, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Dominicans, Missionaries of the Holy Family, and Marist Brothers. In 1947 there were 299 conversions.
On 18 September 1874, at the request of the Third Provincial Council of New Orleans, this territory was detached from the Diocese of Galveston, of which it had been part since 1841, to form first the Apostolic Vicariate of Brownsville with its seat at Laredo, and then (23 March 1912) the Diocese of Corpus Christi, which took its name from the city where the bishop resided. It remained a suffragan of New Orleans until the erection of San Antonio as a metropolitan see in 1926.