SAN GIACINTO, DIOCESE of. - Diocese and city in the province of Québec (Canada).
S. G. is an industrial city situated 35 miles from Montréal. The Fathers of the first Council of Québec petitioned the Holy See to erect a diocese at S. G., which was done by Pio IX on 7 June 1852, by detaching territory from Montréal and Québec. In 1874 (28 Aug.), part of the territory was detached from S. G. to form the diocese of Sherbrooke, at the request of Msgr. Carolo Larocque, third bishop of S. G. He opened the first house of the Dominicans in Canada in 1873. The diocese possesses a flourishing college founded in 1811 and the major seminary opened in 1935. The total population is 185,700 inhabitants, of whom 175,088 are Catholics (173,981 French-speaking). There are 272 diocesan priests, 87 religious (9 congregations), 2,039 nuns (16 congregations), and 662 brothers belonging to six different congregations.
Suffragan of Montréal at the time of its erection, the diocese passed on 2 March 1951 under the jurisdiction of the new metropolitan see of Sherbrooke.