MONTEREY-FRESNO, DIOCESI di. - In the ecclesiastical province of Los Angeles, U.S.A., it comprises 12 counties of the State of California and covers an area of 43,714 square miles, with a total population of 1,080,348 inhabitants, of whom 214,615 are Catholics. M.-F. currently has 204 priests, including 63 religious. There are 81 parishes, 64 chapels, 50 missions and 23 stations, 1 seminary, 7 hospitals, and 1 home for the aged; 25 women’s congregations work in the diocese.
The history of the diocese goes back to the discovery of the peninsula of Baja California by Hernano Cortes in June 1536. The Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans were the first missionaries. Among others, the Franciscan Junipero Serra has remained famous.
On 27 April 1840, Gregory XVI erected the diocese of the Two Californias, and Msgr. Francesco Garcia Diego y Moreno, O.F.M., was appointed its first bishop. In 1850 (1 May), the Pope organized the diocese of M. or S. Diego, and Msgr. Giuseppe Sadoc Alemany, O.P., was raised to episcopal dignity. After the American conquest of
California, Baja California was detached from the diocese of M. (21 December 1853). The part of the diocese situated in Alta California was divided into two dioceses by Pius IX’s brief Ad animarum regimen, on 20 July 1853, and the diocese of M. then became a suffragan of the new archdiocese of S. Francisco. The diocese of M.-F. was erected by Pius XI on 1 June 1922, through a division of the diocese of M., in order to give more favorable boundaries to the dioceses of S. Francisco and Sacramento. The diocese of M. retained the northern part of the State, while the southern part was assigned to the diocese of Los Angeles-S. Diego. The latter was divided once again in 1936 (11 July) to form the diocese of S. Diego.