Lafayette in Indiana, Diocese of. — City and diocese in the State of Indiana in the United States. It comprises the counties of Benton, Blackford, Boone, Carroll, Cass, Clinton, Delaware, Fountain, Fulton, Grant, Hamilton, Howard, Jasper, Jay, Madison, Miami, Montgomery, Newton, Pulaski, Randolph, Tippecanoe, Tipton, Warren, White.
It has an area of 9,832 square miles with a population of 687,212 inhabitants, of whom 39,085 are Catholics. It has 58 parishes, 56 diocesan priests and 72 religious, 5 male religious communities and 7 female, one college, 3 diocesan and parochial high schools, 31 parochial schools; in 1949 there were 440 conversions.
The diocese was created by Pope Pius XII with the apostolic constitution *Ud. sedulo studio* of 21 Oct. 1944 by separation from the Diocese of Fort Wayne, raising the parish church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary to the rank and dignity of a cathedral and assigning it as a suffragan of Indianapolis.