MATAGALPA, DIOCESE OF. – Diocese and chief city of the homonymous department in Nicaragua.
It has an area of 18,600 sq km with a population of 240,000 inhabitants, almost all Catholic. It comprises 14 parishes served by 11 diocesan priests; it has a seminary and 4 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1931, p. 266).
The diocese was erected by Pope Pius XI with the apostolic constitution *Asimorum salutis* of 19 December 1924, by separating from the archdiocese of Managua the two departments of Matagalpa and Jinotega. The first bishop was Msgr. Isidoro Carrilli y Salazar; the present ordinary is Msgr. Octavio José Calderón Padilla. It is a suffragan of Managua.
BIBL.: AAS, 21 (1929), pp. 513-516; Enc. Eur. Am., XXXIII, 841. Enrico Josi