MARIANA, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - City and archdiocese in the State of Minas Gerais, in Brazil. Its suffragans are the bishoprics of 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 inhabitants, of whom 897,500 are Catholics, 133 parishes, 161 diocesan priests, 89 regulars, 12 male religious communities and 12 female communities, major and minor seminaries (1949). Patroness the Assumption, feast on 15 Aug.
STORIA. - The city of M., which has 40,000 inhabitants, preserves an appearance and customs that reflect colonial ones. It was founded, under the name of Ribeirao do Carmo, on 16 July 1696, through the work of the São Paulo explorer ("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 the thirst for gold.
Benedict XIV, by the motu proprio Candor lucis aeternae of 6 Dec. 1746, erected a bishopric at Ribeirao do Carmo, which then assumed its present name of M., detaching the entire province of Minas Geraes, which already counted 300,000 inhabitants, from the diocese of Rio de Janeiro. The government of the diocese was very difficult in the 18th century, because of the social corruption that reigned around the mines, because of disputes with the civil power, and because the Chapter was divided into factions that fought one another or opposed the action of the prelates. The first bishop was Manuel da Cruz, a Cistercian (1745-64), who worked with incomparable 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 by means of procurators. The fourth, Domingos da Incarfação Pontevel, a Dominican (1778-93), and the fifth, Cipriano da S. Jose, a Franciscan (1797-1817), devoted much 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), Silverio Gomes Pimenta (1896-1922), a most noble figure in the Brazilian episcopate, as 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 with the creation of the bishopric of Diamantina in 1854, no fewer than 12 other dioceses and one nullus prelature were detached, which today form two ecclesiastical provinces (Belo Horizonte and Diamantina), besides M.
The College of Caraça, 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 in the era of the gold rush, famous for the sculptures of João Francisco Lisboa, called O. Aleijadinho.
Bibliography3 works
Maurillo Cesar de Lima