MEDELLÍN, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - Archdiocese and capital city of the department of Antioquia in Colombia. It has an area of 15,000 sq. km., with a population of 800,000 inhabitants, all Catholic. It has 64 parishes served by 275 diocesan priests and 91 regulars; a conciliar seminary, 23 male religious communities and 145 female (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 267).
The city was founded in 1673 by the Antioquians at 1,500 m. alongside the central Cordillera in a very fertile valley; it is a commercial and industrial center given the mineral wealth of the district. The diocese was created by Pius IX on 4 Feb. 1868. Pope Leo XIII elevated it to an archdiocese on 24 Feb. 1902, detaching it from the province of St. Fe de Bogotá. The Cathedral was begun in 1890 on a design by C. Carré. The Cathedral is in Romanesque style; the Seminary is the work of the Salesian G. Buscaglione.
The church of Vera Cruz dates back to 1682. It has a flourishing college of the Jesuits.
Bibliography
Enrico Josi
UNIVERSITY
The Pontifical Bolivarian University was founded on September 15, 1936 by Msgr. Tiberio de J. Salazar y Herrera, titular archbishop of Rizeo and apostolic administrator of the archdiocese of M.
The initial nucleus was constituted by the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences. There followed the baccalaureate section, then under the name of Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, and the preparatory section began to function. On February 22, 1937, its juridical personality was recognized by the national government, by means of Executive Resolution no. 48 of the same year. The government subsequently approved the statutes, regulations and programs of the various faculties, by means of Resolution no. 653 of October 16, 1938. In 1938 the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning was created; in 1951 the Faculty of Electrical Engineering also began to function. Furthermore, the University has a school of commerce, and it also includes a women's study circle that maintains the Women's Faculty of Art and Decoration of the College of the Sacred Heart. The University has not neglected its work in the social field: it instructs workers free of charge in the night circle, and welcomes poor youths in the workshops where they learn the trades of mechanic, electrician and cabinetmaker.
By decree of August 16, 1945, the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities granted the Institute, nine years after its foundation, the title of Pontifical. As its official organ, the journal Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana is published, considered one of the most serious publications in Latin America, and to which distinguished thinkers contribute. And for the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences there is the Revista de Facultad de derecho y ciencias políticas, which, having just begun, already enjoys a great reception. Today the University of M. has 4 men's faculties; another, the women's one, of Art and Decoration, is under its high direction, and the relevant academic degrees are conferred in the name of the Pontifical Bolivarian University. The degrees granted by the University are currently recognized by the national government, which gives the University itself a financial contribution. It began with 70 students and 25 professors of law. Today it has 2000 students from all over the nation and from some neighboring nations; therefore the University City is now being built for 5000 students on an area of 20 hectares, owned by the University.
Pelice Henso Botero