FALL RIVER, DIOCESI DI - Enciclopedia Cattolica, Vol. V, p. 592

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

FALL RIVER, Diocese of. – A city in the State of Massachusetts in the United States of America and the see of a suffragan diocese of Boston, comprising a territory of approximately 3,120 sq. km. in the southern part of the same State.

In 1948, out of a population of 432,000, Catholics numbered 215,023, many of whom were French-Canadians, Italians, Poles, and Portuguese, divided into 96 parishes, 37 chapels, and 20 missions, under the direction of 21 priests and 10 religious, with 10 high schools and 40 elementary schools. In 1946, there were 280 conversions.

Erected on March 12, 1904, by separation from the Diocese of Providence, the origins of this diocese are closely linked to the history of the Dioceses of Boston, Hartford, and Providence, to which the territory of Fall River successively belonged.

BIBL.: anon., s. V. in Cath. Enc., suppl., p. 202; T. Hutchinson, The history of colony and provinces of Massachusetts, 3 vols., Cambridge [Mass.] 1936, V. index; I. E. Levton, History of the archdiocese of Boston, from 1664 to 1643, 3 vols., New York 1944, V. index; The Official Catholic directory for 1947, ibid. 1947, part 2, pp. 443-47.