LES CAYES, DIOCESI di. – City in the southwest of the Republic of Haiti (Antilles) and a suffragan diocese of Porto Principe.
It has a population of 775,000, of whom 750,000 are Catholics, distributed among 35 parishes, with 54 diocesan priests and 40 religious priests, one seminary, 13 communities of men religious and 26 of women religious (1949). The diocese was erected on 3 October 1861 following the Concordat of 2 March 1860 between Pius IX and the Republic of Haiti, but the first bishop, Msgr. J. M. A. Morice, was not installed until 4 March 1893.
BIBL.: Pio IX, Acta, I, Roma 1854, pp. 308–24; L. Bonnaud, L'Apostolat en Haïti, Priziae 1938; M. Chatté, s. V. in Cath. Enc., III, p. 469, Suppl. p. 169. Corrado Morin