OLIVEIRA, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese in the State of Minas Gerais in Brazil.
It has an area of 6,887 sq. km. with 198,000 Catholic inhabitants. It comprises 17 parishes served by 17 diocesan priests; it has 5 female religious communities, 5 male educational institutes with 390 pupils; 3 female educational institutes with 644 pupils; 14 institutes of charity and assistance with 2,386 residents.
The diocese was created by Pope Pius XII through the division of 16 parishes from the Diocese of Belo Horizonte, of which it is a suffragan, by the apostolic constitution *Quo uberiores* of 20 December 1941. The first bishop was the present Monsignor Giuseppe Medeiros Leite.
BIBL.: AAS, 34 (1942), pp. 121-23; Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 206; G. B. Lehmann, *O Brasil católico*, Juiz de Fora 1947, pp. 259-61; Virginio Battezzati