Quito, Archdiocese of

QUITO, Archdiocese of. - Archdiocese and capital city of Ecuador, at 2,850 m. above sea level. It has an area of 21,362 sq km with a population of 543,735 inhabitants, of whom 542,000 are Catholics; it has 70 parishes served by 129 diocesan priests and 185 regulars; it has 34 male religious communities and 54 female ones (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 333).

The diocese was created by Pope Paul III on 28 Jan. 1545 as a suffragan of Lima; Pope Pius IX elevated it to a metropolitan see on 13 Jan. 1848.

Q., a city already existing at the end of the 11th century, was conquered by the Cara, who founded a kingdom there, later occupied in the middle of the 15th century by the Inca. The Spaniards penetrated it by force in 1533, while the inhabitants set it on fire; the city was rebuilt immediately afterward and Charles V enriched it with privileges and made it the capital of the region under the viceroyalty of Peru; in 1718 it was instead annexed to that of St. Fè de Bogotá. From 1809 to 1812 the independence of Ecuador was unsuccessfully attempted; from 1822 to 1830 it formed part of the Republic of Gran Colombia, until in 1830 it became an autonomous State. The oldest church of Q. is the cathedral of St. Francis, begun by the architect Iodoco Ricke as early as 1534, but finished by Antonio Rodríguez more than a century later together with the adjoining convent. The interior has three naves divided by pillars; the Baroque façade was damaged by an earthquake. The church, convent and cloister of La Merced are the work of J. Jacine Ortiz; that of the Dominicans contains a statue of the Madonna donated to Q. by Charles V. Artistic is the church of the Jesuits, on whose façade there are six twisted columns; mention should also be made of the churches of El Carmen Antiguo, of St. Augustine and of St. Clare.

The archdiocese today comprises the provinces of Pichincha, León and Tungurahua. Sixtus V, by a bull of 20 Aug. 1586, erected the University, which was opened by the Jesuits in 1621 (J. Toribio Medina, La impronta en Q., Santiago 1924). On 6 Aug. 1875, President G. García was assassinated in Q.

Moreno was assassinated in Q.; he, together with Archbishop Mons. Checa, had consecrated (preceding every other nation) Ecuador to the Sacred Heart.

The Universidad Central del Ecuador in Q. was founded by the Dominicans at the end of the 18th century. Besides the national Library, those of the monasteries of St. Francis and of La Merced are notable. In Q. are seated the Ecuadorian Academy and the National Academy of History.

Enrico Josi

RELATIONS BETWEEN STATE AND CHURCH

Speaking of the capital, it is appropriate to make a brief mention of the country's religious situation, as a complement to the information provided under the entry ECUADOR. After the great gesture of Gabriel García Moreno and his tragic death, the country applied the doctrine of the clearest separation between Church and State. The situation improved over the last decades. On August 6, 1937, the first Friday of the month, Msgr. Fernando Cento, titular Archbishop of Seleucia Pieria, presented in the same capital the credentials of the first Apostolic Nuncio, thus re-establishing, after about 50 years of interruption, diplomatic relations between Ecuador and the Holy See. This happy result was reached following laborious negotiations which, begun in 1936 by the Head of State Federico Paez and conducted between the said pontifical representative and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Manuel Larrea, were crowned on July 24, 1937 with the signing of a Modus vivendi.

With this diplomatic agreement, which the distinguished Ecuadorian jurist and historian Julio Tobar Donoso defined as "the fruit of generous and unhoped-for concord, key of peace and cement of civic harmony," a painful period of conflicts, at times acute, between the two powers was finally closed. A period rich in fruitful achievements for the supreme spiritual interests of that profoundly religious people was opened, among which the Catholic Normal Institute and the Catholic University.

Regarding the modus vivendi, particular emphasis must be placed on Art. 3, which has no precedent in other documents of this kind, in which Church and State commit themselves to collaborate "for the moral and material improvement of the Ecuadorian Indian, for his assimilation into the national culture and for the safeguarding of social justice."

Fifteen years later this most longed-for reconciliation was, as it were, sanctioned by the apotheosis of the national heroine, Mariana of Jesus, called the "Azucena de Q.," raised to the supreme height of the altars by the pontiff Pius XII, on July 9, 1950 (AAS, 42 [1950], pp. 637-639). - See plate XIV.

Lino Zanini