PROVIDENCE, DIOCESE of. - City and diocese in the State of Rhode Island (U.S.A.), suffragan of Boston, today covering an area of 1,085 sq. miles, with a total population (1950 census) of 791,896 inhabitants, of whom 435,865 are Catholics.
The French Canadians who immigrated to the State still constitute an important part of the Catholic population. In the diocese of P. there are 534 priests, of whom 173 are religious belonging to 11 different congregations; 136 parishes, 119 chapels, 25 missions, 40 female congregations with 1,716 religious, 2 seminaries and scholasticates, 3 colleges, and 3 hospitals. The diocese of P. was erected on 17 February 1872 for the State of Rhode Island and the south-eastern part of Massachusetts. This part subsequently became the diocese of Fall River (14 March 1904). The city of P. was also the seat of the diocese of Hartford, erected by Gregory XVI on 28 November 1843, until 1847.
The earliest traces of Catholicism that can be found date back to 1780, when the French army under Rochambeau, on its way elsewhere, encamped at Newport and P.; it is known that there were chaplains with the armed forces. Shortly afterwards (February 1783), the colonial Legislative Assembly repealed the law against the Roman Catholic religion. The revolution of Guadalupe that followed the French Revolution caused the immigration of a number of French families to Newport and P. The first Mass, celebrated in a church built ad hoc, was said at P. in November 1837.