Salto, Diocese of

SALTO, DIOCESE of. — City and diocese in Uruguay, in the department of the same name.

It has an area of 65,000 sq km and a population of 500,000 inhabitants, of whom 450,000 are Catholics; it has 21 parishes served by 35 diocesan priests and 28 religious priests; it has a seminary, 7 male and 22 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, pp. 348–49). This diocese was erected together with that of Melo by the brief of Leo XIII dated 19 Apr. 1897, as a suffragan of Montevideo. Owing to political circumstances, its first bishop, Msgr. Tomas Camacho, was not appointed until 1919.