CUIABÁ, Archdiocese of. — In the center of the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Its suffragan sees are the dioceses of Corumbá and São Luís de Cáceres, the prelatures nullius of Chapada, Diamantino, Guajará-Mirim, and Registro do Araguaia, all subsequently detached from the archdiocese, which remained with an area of approx. 257,900 sq. km. and 80,000 inhabitants, 11 parishes administered by the Salesians and the Franciscans; there is also the institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (Salesian Sisters). It does not possess a seminary for the diocesan clergy. Its patron is Senhor Bom Jesus (feast on January 1st). The city of Cuiabá, with 47,000 inhabitants, although the seat of the state government, has relatively little importance. However, efforts are being made to bring it closer to the major centers on the coast.
Cuiabá is one of the numerous interior cities of Brazil whose origin dates back to the “Bandeirantes” of São Paulo. In 1718 some of them pushed as far as the place now called Porquilonas to capture Indians as slaves. A year later they found gold there and began to build a village, erecting a chapel to Our Lady of the Feather. Soon after, a large quantity of gold was discovered nearby (1723), which led to the relocation of the village, which received the name Bom Jesus de Cuiabá and was immediately swelled by a multitude of adventurers, who later populated that fertile wilderness, founding numerous settlements that in time became as many cities. Among these, Mato Grosso, formerly Vila Bela, was the seat of the provincial government, which in 1820 moved and remained in Cuiabá. The religious history of Cuiabá also begins with the original chapel of Our Lady of the Feather, where Fr. Joaquim Botelho celebrated the first Mass. The parish, erected not long afterward in Cuiabá by the bishop of Rio de Janeiro, was established as the seat of the prelature nullius by the bull of Benedict XIV *Candor lucis aeternae* of December 6, 1746, and then as a diocese by the bull of Leo XII *Sollicita catholicis gregis cura* of July 15, 1826.
It became an ecclesiastical metropolis on March 10, 1910, by virtue of the bull of Pius X *Novas constituere*. The cathedral of Cuiabá, dedicated to Senhor Bom Jesus, is much venerated.