Diocese of PENEDO. – A city and diocese in the State of Alagoas in Brazil.
It has an area of 16,643 sq. km. with a population of 454,000 inhabitants, of whom 450,000 are Catholics. It comprises 18 parishes, with 22 diocesan priests and 15 religious, one seminary, 3 male and 3 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 314).
The diocese was created by Pope Benedict XV with the apostolic constitution *Catholicae Ecclesiae cura* of 3 April 1916, by separating it from the Diocese of Alagoas and elevating the mother church dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary in Penedo to the status of cathedral. The first bishop was Msgr. Giona de Araujo Batinga (1916–40). The diocese is a suffragan of Maceió.
BIBL.: AAS, 8 (1916), pp. 169–71; G. B. Lehmann, *O Brasil Católico 1947*, Juiz de Fora 1947, pp. 275–79.