Montevideo, Archdiocese of

MONTEVIDEO, ARCHDIOCESE of - Archdiocese and capital city of Uruguay. It has an area of 40,062 sq km with a population of 1,345,000 inhabitants, of whom 935,000 are Catholics, distributed in 82 parishes, served by 97 diocesan priests and 450 regulars, a conciliar seminary, 71 male religious communities and 110 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 277).

Until 1620 the territory was under the jurisdiction of Buenos Aires; in 1828 it was erected as an apostolic vicariate; on 15 July 1878 Pope Leo XIII created the diocese and the first bishop was Msgr. Giacinto Vera; the same Pontiff on 19 Apr. 1897 elevated M. to a metropolitan see, assigning to it as suffragans the dioceses of Florida-Melo and Salto; the first archbishop was Msgr. Mariano Soler.

The city was founded in 1723 by the Portuguese. The cathedral, begun in 1803, was completed only in 1905; other notable churches are those of St. Francis, of Aguada, of the Seminary, of the Conception, of Our Lady of Lourdes, of the Reducto, of the Adoratrices, of the Redemptorists, of the Capuchins, and the Jackson chapel of the Jesuits. Large buildings are those of the Club Catolico and of the Circulo Catolico de Obreros. In 1880 the national Museum was founded there; later the Museum and Historical Archive, the Museum of Fine Arts, the National Meteorological Museum. The two main Libraries are the national one and the one attached to the University.

Enrico Josi