LES GONAIVES, DIOCESE OF. – City and diocese on the island of Haiti (Antilles), capital of the department of Artibonite.
It has an area of 6,000 sq km and a population of 500,000 inhabitants, of whom 475,000 are Catholics. It has 15 parishes, served by 30 diocesan priests; it has one seminary, 3 male and 7 female religious communities (Annuario Pontificio, 1951, p. 245). The diocese was established by Pius IX on 3 October 1861, but was occupied only in 1928, with the appointment of Msgr. F. Julliot to II. By a decree of 25 June 1929, the S. Congregation of the Consistory detached from the diocese of Capo Haitiano the parishes of Hinche, Maisade, Marmelade and St. Michel, joining them to those of L. G., so that the entire territory of the civil province of Artibonite was included in that diocese (AAS, 21 [1929], pp. 558–59). The diocese is suffragan to Porto Principe. Enrico Josi