DURANGO, ARCIDIOCESI of. — In Mexico, in the federal state of the same name, bordering on the north with the bishopric of Chihuahua, on the east with those of Zacatecas and Saltillo, on the west with that of Zanaloa, and on the south with that of Tepic. Its territory was separated from the diocese of Guadalajara of Nueva Vizcaya in the Consistory of 28 September 1620, but this erection took effect only on 1 September 1623, that is, 60 years after the founding of the city of D.
The archdiocese has an area of 132,000 sq. km.; it has 550,000 inhabitants, of whom 533,000 are Catholics; for its administration it is divided into 6 rural vicariates and has 52 parishes with 88 diocesan priests and 8 religious priests, one seminary, 4 houses of male religious with 22 professed members, and 17 of female religious with 166 professed members (1949). The former seminary is now used as a military hospital. The first bishop was the Mexican Augustinian Gondisalvo de Hermosilla. The cathedral church had the apostle St. Matthew as its titular saint, but today the patroness of the archdiocese is the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It was a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Mexico until 1862, when it passed under that of Guadalajara; but on 23 June 1891 Pope Leo XIII raised it to an archbishopric, after it had been governed by 24 prelates.
The ninth bishop, Garcia di Legaspi, began construction of the present cathedral church in 1695; it was completed in the middle of the following century. A century later, Bishop Antonio Zubiria Escalante carried out several commendable modifications to the interior of the church, including the removal of the large choir from the center, which obstructed the view and the great gathering of the people; he equipped it with a new high altar and rebuilt the dome, which is invariably found in the principal churches of that Republic. The same prelate, after the work had been completed, consecrated the Cathedral in 1843. The interior resembles the Tuscan Baroque style, while the exterior has two elegant towers. The revolution of the second decade of the last century interrupted the religious development of this archdiocese, and several priests were killed; the persecution in our own times has caused immense damage there, principally to the clergy, a situation which is currently being remedied with the help of several religious Orders.