NATCHEZ, DIOCESE of. - In the United States of America, a suffragan of New Orleans, it comprises the territory of the State of Mississippi, with an area of 46,340 miles and a total population (1949) of 2,349,232 inhabitants. Catholics (1951) number 50,559.
In the 67 parishes and 65 missions there work (1951) 176 priests (including 95 religious belonging to twelve different congregations); there are also 2 hospitals, 2 orphanages, 1 school of the Verbite Fathers for blacks, and 21 women’s Congregations.
N. was erected as a diocese on 28 July 1837. But the work of evangelization began in the 17th century with the expeditions of the Jesuit Fr. Marquette, of R. R. C. de La Salle and P. L. d'Iberville, and the work of the Capuchins, Jesuits, and secular priests (the secular priests S. Cosme and N. Foucault, and the Jesuits P. Du Poisson,
NATCHEZ - NATIVITÀ DI MARIA S.MA
G. Souart and A. Senat). Several priests also arrived there from Salamanca, but when the territory passed from Spain to the United States the missions were almost entirely abandoned. The first bishop was Msgr. Giov. M. Gius. Chanche, a Sulpician, born in Baltimora on 4 Oct. 1795 to parents who had emigrated from S. Domingo. He was consecrated on 14 March 1841, and when he arrived in Natchez he found only one priest in the entire State, Fr. J. Brogard.