PESQUEIRA, DIOCESE of. — City and diocese in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil.
It has an area of 35,000 sq km and a population of 392,887 inhabitants, of whom 392,000 are Catholics. It has 25 parishes served by 32 diocesan priests and 10 religious priests, one seminary, 2 male and 4 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 316).
The diocese was created by the blessed Pope Pius X on 5 April 1910 through the division of the dioceses of Olinda and Recife, with its see at Floresta. Benedict XV, by a decree of 2 August 1918, transferred the see to P. The diocese is suffragan to Olinda and Recife. Its first bishop was Msgr. A. Alvaro da Silva, later archbishop of Bahia. Pope Pius XI, by the apostolic constitution Dominici gregis of 20 November 1923, detached part of the territory from the diocese of P. in order to create the new diocese of Petrolina (AAS, 16 [1924], pp. 216–18).