DURANGO, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - In Mexico, in the federal state of the same name, bordering to the north with the bishopric of Chihuahua, to the east with that of Zacatecas and Saltillo, to the west with that of Zanaloa and to the south with that of Tepic. Its territory was detached from the diocese of Guadalajara of New Biscay in the Consistory of 28 Sept. 1620, but this erection took effect only on 1 Sept. 1623, that is, 60 years after the founding of the city of D.
The archdiocese has an area of 132,000 sq. km.; it counts 550,000 inhabitants, of whom 533,000 are Catholics; for its governance it is divided into 6 rural deaneries, 52 parishes with 88 diocesan priests and 8 regulars, one seminary, 4 male religious houses with 22 professed and 17 female with 166 professed (1949). The old seminary is now used as a military hospital. The first bishop was the Augustinian Gondisalvo de Hermosilla, a Mexican. The cathedral church had as its titular the apostle St. Matthew, 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, the year in which it passed under that of Guadalajara; but on 23 June 1891 it was erected into an archbishopric by Pope Leo XIII, after having been governed by 24 prelates.
The ninth bishop, Garcia de Legaspi, began the construction of the present cathedral church in 1695; it was finished in the middle of the following century. A century later Bishop Antonio Zubiria Escalante carried out some praiseworthy modifications in the interior of the church, among which was the removal of the great choir from the center, which obstructed the view and the large concourse of the people; he provided it with a new high altar and rebuilt the dome, which is never lacking in the principal churches of that Republic. The same prelate, having finished the works, consecrated the Cathedral in 1843. The interior resembles the Tuscan Baroque style; on the exterior it presents 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 times has caused immense damage there, principally in personnel, which is currently being remedied with the help of some religious Orders.