**CRATO, Diocese of.** - It occupies the southern part of the State of Ceará in Brazil, a hot and extremely fertile region, though sometimes struck by terrible droughts.
A suffragan of the archdiocese of Fortaleza, it covers 40,000 sq. km., has over 570,000 inhabitants, of whom 569,500 are Catholics, 29 parishes, 45 diocesan priests and a minor seminary; the regular clergy are represented by the Salesians and the Fathers of the Holy Family; the female institutions are the Congregation of the Daughters of St Teresa of Jesus and the diocesan Daughters of St Teresa, founded in 1923. Its titular is Our Lady of the Feather; the feast is celebrated on 1 September. Crato has been a city since 1852.
Its nucleus was founded at the beginning of the 17th century, when Ceará was still under the jurisdiction of the governor of Pernambuco. With the Apostolic Constitution *Catholicae Ecclesiae* of 20 October 1914 by Benedict XV, it was erected as a diocesan see, its territory being taken from that of Fortaleza, though remaining part of the ecclesiastical province of Olinda and Recife. The following year it was declared a suffragan of Fortaleza, when that city was elevated to metropolitan status.