PORTALEGRE NEL BRASILE (PORTO ALEGRE), ARCHDIOCESE of. — Capital city and archdiocese in the State of Rio Grande do Sud in Brazil. It has an area of 44,620 sq. km and a population of 1,358,000, of whom 1,188,000 are Catholics. It comprises 137 parishes served by 184 diocesan priests and 253 religious priests, and has 2 seminaries; there are 88 male and 253 female religious communities (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 323).
The city was founded in the mid-eighteenth century by the inhabitants of Viamao, who established there a port called Porto dos Casares; this name was changed to the present one in 1773. The diocese was created by Pope Pius IX with the bull Ad oves dominicas of 7 May 1848, by division from the diocese of S. Sebastiano di Rio de Janeiro, under the title of S. Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul. The first bishop was Msgr. F. J. Rodrigues Prates (1848–58). Pope Pius X, with the bull Prædecessorum of 15 August 1910, by division from this diocese, created the three new dioceses of Pelota, Uruguayana, and S. Maria, and raised S. Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul to a metropolitan see, changing its name to P. At present, the archdiocese of P. has as suffragans the dioceses of Caxias, Pelotas, S. Maria, Uruguayana, and the nullus prelature of Vaccaria. The Cathedral is dedicated to N. S. Madre de Seus; other churches are those of N. Senhora das Dores and of S. Giuseppe, served by the Jesuits, of the Congregation, of the Rosary, etc.
BIBL. AAS, 2 (1910), pp. 681–82; Enc. Eur. Amer., XLVI, pp. 646–48; G. B. Lehmann, O Brasil Católico 1947, Juiz de Fora 1947, pp. 297–312. Virginio Battezzati
CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS. – In P. there are three major Catholic cultural institutions.
1. The Central Seminary. – The metropolitan, or provincial, major seminary and the diocesan minor seminary were transferred in 1913 to Sao Leopoldo, into the Jesuits’ building which, erected in 1873 and renovated in 1900, had until then functioned as the «College of the Immaculate Conception» (the name later given to the major seminary). In 1923 the major seminary occupied the nearby S. Giuseppe College of the Franciscan Sisters who, moving elsewhere, ceded the building to the Jesuits. In 1938 the minor seminary (S. Giuseppe) moved to the new diocesan headquarters in Gravataí, and in the building thus vacated the philosophical section of the same major seminary was established; the latter had been declared «central» in 1934. For this flourishing institution, which has more than 300 students (in 1951, 184 «philosophers» and 127 «theologians»), a magnificent new headquarters is well advanced in construction at Viamão.
2. The Jesuits’ Higher College. – For the students of the Society of Jesus (the Higher College for the religious Province of Southern Brazil), who had lived alongside the seminarians since 1925, the new Cristo Re Higher College was inaugurated at Sao Leopoldo in 1942; since 1945 its faculties of theology and philosophy have operated there, confirmed by the Holy See in 1949.
3. The Catholic University. – Based in P. (Universidade católica do Rio Grande do Sul), it is the result of the work of the Marist Brothers of the Schools, who settled there in 1900. Its origins go back to 1927, with the foundation of a higher institute of commerce attached to the College of N. S. do Rosario; the federal law of 11 April 1931 (decree 9.851) on the reform of higher education encouraged its organization and development. The various legal authorizations and the final approval of the federal government on 9 November 1948 (decree 25.794) were followed by its canonical erection, with the conferment of the title «pontifical» on 1 November 1950 (decree Tot inter, in AAS, 43 [1951], p. 495).
It has three faculties: philosophy (with sciences and letters), law, and political and economic sciences; it has the School of Social Service «aggregated» to II. The third Catholic University of Brazil, after those of Rio de Janeiro and S. Paolo, it is steadily gaining recognition for the seriousness of its teaching. Its Grand Chancellor is the archbishop of P., who also serves as president of the Rio Grande episcopal Commission for the interests of the University.