LEIRIA, DIOCESE of. — City and diocese situated 147 km north of Lisbon (Portugal). It has an area of 1,700 sq. km. and a population of 174,000 inhabitants, of whom 164,000 are Catholics. It has 61 parishes, 98 diocesan priests and 15 religious priests, one seminary, 3 male and 13 female religious communities (1949).
The origin of the diocese of L. lies in the profound changes made in the sixteenth century to the jurisdiction of the monastery of S. Croce in Coimbra. Indeed, at the request of Giovanni III, king of Portugal, Paul III, by the bull Pro excellenti Apostolicae Sedis (22 May 1545), detached L. from the diocese of Coimbra and made it an independent diocese, free from the jurisdiction exercised there, on various grounds, by the prior-mor (major prior) of S. Croce, the bishop of Coimbra, and the archbishop of Braga; he also annexed it to the ecclesiastical province of Lisbon. By the bull Gravissimum Christi Ecclesiam regendi et gubernandi munus (30 Sept. 1881), Leo XIII authorized the ecclesiastical reduction of Portugal so strongly desired by the sectarian government of the time, and entrusted its execution to the bishop of Oporto, Cardinal D. Americo. Thus, by the latter’s decree, dated 4 Sept. 1882 and confirmed by a formal letter of the 14th of the same month, various dioceses were suppressed, including L., whose parishes were divided between the dioceses of Coimbra and the patriarchate of Lisbon. But the restoration movement, due especially to several zealous priests, was not long in coming. Finally, Benedict XV, by the apostolic letter Quo vehementius (17 Jan. 1918), restored the diocese of L. and established in the cathedral church of S. M. Assunta a Chapter of six canons with two dignities.
Within the Fatima (v.).