MARQUETTE, Diocese of. - City and diocese in the State of Michigan in the United States. It contains the northern peninsula of the State of Michigan, with an area of 16,281 square miles and 323,544 inhabitants, of whom 91,034 are Catholics. It has 93 parishes, 40 chapels, 40 missions and 21 stations; it has 146 diocesan priests and 25 regulars, 1 seminary, 5 male religious communities and 11 female; 6 diocesan and parochial high schools and 24 parochial schools; in 1949 there were 338 conversions.
The first priests who penetrated the peninsula of Michigan were the Jesuits Raymbault and Jogues, who planted the cross on the banks of the St. Marys River in 1641; in 1660 Fr. R. Ménard arrived there and in 1665 Fr. C. Allouez. In 1668 a mission was established there; it became ever more flourishing. At the First National Council of May 1852 it was recommended that an apostolic vicariate be erected in northern Michigan; this was in fact erected by Pius IX, by brief of 29 July 1853, separating its territory from Detroit and appointing as first apostolic vicar Msgr. T. Baraja, with the title of bishop of the Amazons in partibus, and with residence at Sault Ste Marie, which in 1857 was created a diocese. On 23 Oct. 1865 the see was transferred to M. with the title of Sault Ste Marie and M. Other bishops were Msgr. I. Mrak (1869-78), F. Eis (1890-1922), J. Nussbaum (1922-35), J. C. Plagens (1935-1940), F. J. Magner (1940-47); the current one is Msgr. T. L. Noa (1947). Pope Pius XI, by the apostolic constitution Ad aeternam christifidelium salutem of 22 May 1937, withdrew the diocese of M. from the ecclesiastical province of Milwaukee, making it a suffragan of Detroit.
The Cathedral is dedicated to St. Peter.