MARIANA, ARCHDIOCESE of. — City and archdiocese in the State of Minas Geraes, Brazil. Its suffragan sees are Porto Alegre, Campanha, Caratinga, Caruaru, Juiz de Fora, and Leopoldina. The archdiocese has an area of 44,027 sq. km. and a population of 900,000, of whom 897,500 are Catholics; 133 parishes; 161 diocesan priests; 89 religious priests; 12 male and 12 female religious communities; and major and minor seminaries (1949). Patroness: the Assumption; feast on 15 August.
HISTORY. – The city of M., which has 40,000 inhabitants, preserves an appearance and customs reflecting those of the colonial period. It was founded, under the name of Ribeirao do Carmo, on 16 July 1696, by the Paulista explorer (a “bandeirante”), Salvador Fernandes Furtado de Mandonça, one of the many who traversed the region, soon populated by a heterogeneous multitude of adventurers and slaves, driven by a thirst for gold.
Benedict XIV, by the motu proprio Candor lucis aeternae of 6 December 1746, established a bishopric at Ribeirao do Carmo, which then assumed its present name of M., after the entire province of Minas Geraes, which already had 300,000 inhabitants, had been detached from the diocese of Rio de Janeiro. The administration of the diocese was extremely difficult in the eighteenth century, owing to the social corruption prevailing around the mines, disputes with the civil authorities, and the fact that the Chapter was divided into factions, which fought one another or opposed the action of the prelates. The first bishop was Manuel da Cruz, a Cistercian (1745–64), who worked with unparalleled zeal, organizing the ecclesiastical administration and founding the Seminary. The second, Joaquim Borges de Figueiredo (1771–72), and the third, Bartolomeu Nuñes dos Reis (1772–73), never went to the diocese, which they governed through procurators. The fourth, Domingos da Incarfação Pontevel, a Dominican (1778–93), and the fifth, Cipriano da S. Jose, a Franciscan (1797–1817), devoted considerable attention to the discipline of the clergy.
From the period of independence, the diocese was successively governed by José della S.ma Trinità (1819–35), a Franciscan; Antonio Vicoso, a Lazarist, venerated as a saint (1844–75); Antonio Sa e Benevides (1876–96); and Silverio Gomes Pimenta (1896–1922), a most distinguished figure in the Brazilian episcopate, as a humanist and pastor. Under him, M. became an archiepiscopal see, by the consistorial decree Sempiternum humani generis of 6 May 1906.
From the territory of the ancient diocese, which had been divided by the creation of the bishopric of Diamantina in 1854, no fewer than 12 other dioceses and one prelature nullus were separated; these today form two ecclesiastical provinces (Belo Horizonte and Diamantina), in addition to M.
The Caraça College, founded within the boundaries of the diocese in 1772, is famous in the history of Brazilian education.
The archdiocese is perhaps the richest in Brazil in the field of religious art (v. BRASILE, III. Arre). The cities of Ouro Preto and Congonhas do Campo possess beautiful churches, built during the period of the search for gold and famous for the sculptures of João Francisco Lisboa, known as O. Aleijadinho.
Maurillo Cesar de Lima