FLORIANOPOLIS, ARCHDIOCESE OF. — In the State of S. Caterina in Brazil and the metropolis of the ecclesiastical province, whose boundaries are the same as those of the State. Its suffragan dioceses are Lages and Joinville.
The archdiocese extends over 20,855 sq. km., with 510,000 inhabitants, of whom 450,000 are Catholics. There are 55 parishes, 48 diocesan priests, and 68 religious priests. There are also houses of Franciscans, Jesuits, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Servites, 7 women’s religious congregations, the major Seminary of S. Leopoldo in Rio Grande do Sud, and a minor seminary in the city of Azambuja (1948). F. is situated at 27° 33′ 48″ south latitude and 48° 54′ 00″ west longitude of Greenwich. It has approximately 50,000 inhabitants.
In 1684 the banderranies, explorers coming from S. Paulo, established a settlement at Laguna. The Portuguese, for their part, in order to secure their rear during their march southward, occupied the Island of S. Caterina, populating it with colonists originating from the Azores (1738). The village was named Desterro and is today’s F. The city suffered somewhat in the war between the Portuguese and the Spanish toward the end of the eighteenth century, and since then its progress has been uninterrupted in every respect. For administrative reasons, the territory of F. belonged to the dioceses of Rio de Janeiro until 1894 and of Curitiba until 1908, when it was detached and erected as a diocese, receiving its first bishop in the person of Monsignor Giovanni Becker. In 1912 he was transferred to the Church of Porto Alegre, and in 1914 Monsignor Gioacchino Domenico de Oliveira succeeded him at F.; he became its archbishop when that see was elevated to an archdiocese by the apostolic constitution Inter praeclipus of 17 January 1927. F. participates in Brazil (v.). Three diocesan synods have been convened there. Newspapers of Catholic orientation are published in the metropolitan province, and there is also a government secondary school directed by the Jesuits.