Curitiba, Archdiocese of

CURITIBA, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - In the State of Paraná, Brazil, it is the metropolis of the ecclesiastical province of the same name, which comprises the dioceses of Ponta Grossa and Jacarezinho, as well as the prelatures nullius of Foz de Iguassú and Palmas.

The archdiocese of C. has an area of about 31,298 sq. km., about 500,000 inhabitants of whom 400,000 are Catholics, 39 parishes, 24 diocesan priests and 114 religious (Basilians, Capuchins, Claretians, Franciscans, Josephites, Lazarists, Missionaries of the Divine Word, Passionists, Redemptorists); furthermore 8 female Congregations (1948). It also has a good minor seminary. The titular feast of the archdiocese is the Nativity of Mary, celebrated on 8 September.

The city of C. is an important road junction for communications with Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo, and it is linked with the port of Paranagua by a railway.

The colonization of Paraná arose as a staging post of the march of Portuguese-Brazilian southern conquests. The cities of Paranagua in 1644 and C. in 1693 date back to the first foundations. For geographic and administrative reasons all the regions of the South, including Paraná, remained subject to the jurisdiction of Rio de Janeiro during the colonial era, both for civil and for ecclesiastical government. Thus it is explained how even after independence and the erection of the bishopric of Porto Alegre (1848), Paraná belonged to the diocese of Rio, a situation that lasted until the Ad universae orbis Ecclesiae of 27 April 1892, which established C. as a church suffragan of Rio and later of São Paulo (with the Dioecesium nimiam amplitudinem of 7 June 1908). Finally C. became a metropolis on 9 May 1926 with the Quum in dies of Pius XI, which divided its territory among the dioceses of Ponta Grossa, Jacarezinho and the prelature of Foz de Iguassú, then created, to which that of Palmas was added in 1945. The bishops of C. were José de Camargo Barros (1894-1904); Duarte Leopoldo Silva (1904-1907); João Francisco Braga (1907-35), one of the greatest Brazilian sacred orators; Attico Eusebio da Rocha, the current archbishop since 1936.

C. possesses valuable sacred monuments, such as the cathedral dedicated to Our Lady de Luz and the church of the Franciscan Third Order. Some Catholic daily newspapers are published in the archdiocese.

Maurilio Cesar de Lima