PUERTO RICO. - Island of the West Indies, belonging to the group of the Greater Antilles, discovered by Christopher Columbus on 17 Sept. 1493 and by him named S. Juan Bautista in honor of Don Juan, Prince of Asturias. Spanish colonization began in 1508 through the work of Juan Ponce de León. By the peace Treaty of 10 Dec. 1898 it passed to the United States.
The evangelization of P. followed immediately upon its conquest. On 8 Aug. 1511 Pope Julius II with the bull Pontifex Romanus erected the diocese of S. Juan at the same time as that of S. Domingo. The new dioceses were made suffragans of the archdiocese of Seville (Spain). From 1546 S. Juan was a suffragan of S. Domingo. Its first bishop was Alonso Manso, canon of Salamanca. The first of the bishops of America, he took possession of his diocese in 1513, and found on the Island 200 Spaniards and about 500 Indians converted to Christianity. Alonso Manso was the first inquisitor general of the Indies, approved by Card. Adrian of Utrecht, later Pope Adrian VI (1522). In 1511 King Ferdinand sent 24 Minorites to P. In 1522 the Dominicans founded the convent of St. Thomas Aquinas at S. Juan. But ecclesiastical and missionary activity subsequently had little to do with the natives, because these were in a short time almost entirely exterminated. It was the missionaries alone who courageously defended the natives and upheld their rights (v. LAS CASAS, BARTOLOMÉ de).
Since 1924 the Island has been divided into two dioceses immediately subject to the Holy See, Ponce (v.) and S. Juan (v.); both suffer from a great scarcity of native clergy, so that the vast majority of the priests needed for the ministry must come from abroad.
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Nicola Kowalsky