Leiria, Diocese of. – A city and diocese situated 147 km north of Lisbon (Portugal). It covers an area of 1,700 km² with a population of 174,000, of whom 164,000 are Catholic. It comprises 61 parishes, 98 diocesan priests and 15 regular clergy, one seminary, 3 male religious communities and 13 female (1949).
The origin of the diocese of Leiria lies in the profound changes made in the 16th century to the jurisdiction of the monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra. Indeed, at the request of John III, King of Portugal, Paul III with the bull *Pro excellenti Apostolicae Sedis* (22 May 1545) separated Leiria from the diocese of Coimbra and erected it as an independent diocese free from the jurisdiction exercised, for various reasons, by the prior-mor (major prior) of Santa Cruz, the bishop of Coimbra and the archbishop of Braga, attaching it to the ecclesiastical province of Lisbon. With the bull *Gravissimum Christi Ecclesiam regendi et gubernandi munus* (30 Sept. 1881), Leo XIII authorised the ecclesiastical reduction of Portugal, much desired by the then secularist government, and entrusted its execution to the bishop of Oporto, Cardinal D. Américo. Thus, by the decree of this prelate dated 4 Sept. 1882, confirmed by regular letters of the 14th of the same month, several dioceses were suppressed, including Leiria, whose parishes were divided between the diocese of Coimbra and the patriarchate of Lisbon. Yet the movement for restoration, promoted especially by some zealous priests, was not long in coming. Finally, Benedict XV, by the apostolic letter *Quo vehementius* (17 Jan. 1918), restored the diocese of Leiria and established in the cathedral church of Santa Maria Assunta a chapter of six canons with two dignities.
Within the diocese stands the shrine of Fátima (q.v.).