MERCEDES, DIOCESE of. — City and diocese in Argentina.
It has an area of 145,142 sq. km., with a population of 1,100,000 inhabitants, of whom 950,000 are Catholics. It has 59 parishes, served by 75 diocesan priests and 65 religious priests; it has one seminary, 24 male and 64 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 269).
The diocese was created by Pius XI by the apostolic constitution Nobilis Argentinae nationis of 20 April 1934, by detaching from the diocese of Plata a group of parishes and elevating to cathedral the parish church of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy existing in M. The diocese is suffragan to Buenos Aires. The first bishop was Mgr Giovanni Chimento; the present one is Mgr Annunziato Serafini.
BIBL.: AAS, 27 (1935), pp. 257–63. Enrico Josi