FORTALEZA, ARCHDIOCESE of. — In the State of Ceará (Brazil). It is the metropolitan see of the ecclesiastical province of the aforementioned State, a province comprising the three suffragan sees of Crato, Sobral, and Limoeiro, and whose extent coincides with that of the State itself.
The area of the archdiocese is approximately 50,000 sq. km., with 1,200,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,050,000 are Catholics. There are 48 parishes, 85 diocesan priests, and 108 religious priests: Franciscans, Capuchins, Jesuits, Lazarists, Salesians, Salvatorians, Mariatis, Sacramentans, and 11 women’s religious congregations; the major and minor seminaries are entrusted to the Lazarists. Its patron is St. Joseph (feast on the Wednesday of the second week after Easter). F. is also the capital of the State; it has 140,000 inhabitants and is situated at 3° 43′ 14″ S latitude and 38° 30′ 52″ W longitude.
The State of Ceará was visited both by the Spaniards A. Hojeda (1499) and V. Pizon (1500), although they did not colonize it, and by the Portuguese, who attempted to establish themselves there during the sixteenth century and at the beginning of the seventeenth. The missionary expedition among the region’s natives, undertaken by the Jesuits Luigi Figueira and Francesco Pinto, ended with Pinto’s martyrdom. Nevertheless, Martino Soares Moreno, with five soldiers and a priest, succeeded in building at Cape Mucuripe the fortress (which is precisely what the name F. means) of S. Sebastiano and the chapel of Madona do Amparo, which constituted the beginnings of the present capital (1611). During the same seventeenth century, Ceará was occupied by the Dutch, who Brazil (v.). From then on, the history of Ceará became intertwined with the general history of Brazil; noteworthy was the part it played in the campaign for independence and for the abolition of slavery. F. was detached from the diocese of Olinda-Recife, forming its own ecclesiastical jurisdiction through the bull Pro animamens salute of 6 June 1854, and its first bishop was Mons. Giuseppe Antonio dos Santos (1861–81), founder of the seminary (1864), apostle of charity during the drought of 1877–1879, and later transferred to the see of S. Salvador. His successor at F. was Mons. Gioacchino Giuseppe Vieira (1883–1912), in turn succeeded by Mons. Emanuele da Silva Gomes (1912–41), previously the former’s auxiliary, who gave vigorous impetus to the spread of religion throughout the State. Today Ceará is one of the regions of Brazil where Catholicism is lived most intensely. Benedict XV, with the bull Catholicae religionis bonum of 10 November 1915, elevated that see to an archdiocese.
Among the various periodicals published in F., the Catholic daily O Nordeste deserves mention.
The most artistically significant churches in the archdiocese are the Cathedral and the church of S. Francesco at Canindè.