SAN GIUSEPPE DI COSTARICA, DIOCESE OF
City and diocese, capital of Costa Rica in Central America.
It has an area of 13,000 sq. km. with a population of 436,468 inhabitants, of whom 435,000 are Catholics distributed in 47 parishes, served by 75 diocesan priests and 56 regular clergy; it has a seminary, 11 male religious communities and 19 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 356). It was first under the jurisdiction of Guatemala.
The diocese was created by Pope Pius IX on 28 Feb. 1850; Pope Benedict XV elevated it to a metropolitan see on 16 Feb. 1921 with the diocese of Alajuela as its suffragan.
This region was discovered by Christopher Columbus on 5 Oct. 1502; the Catholic religion was established there in 1514 with the Spanish occupation, which organized it completely in 1574 under the name of Nueva Cartago. At that time (from 1531), however, the diocese of Nicaragua had jurisdiction over Costa Rica, and the two regions were under the metropolitan of Seville until 1546; from then until 1743 they were under the ecclesiastical province of Lima and finally under that of Guatemala. When Costa Rica was erected as an independent diocese in 1850, its boundaries were those of the Republic, proclaimed in 1842, but since 1921 the region of Alajuela has been detached from it, and the Apostolic Vicariate of Limón is also within its territory.
GIUSEPPE M. POU Y MARTI
SAN GIUSEPPE DI GRAJAÚ, PRELATURE « NULLIUS » OF
Suffragan of São Luís do Maranhão, in the state of Maranhão (Brazil).
It was created on 10 Feb. 1922 and entrusted to the Lombard Capuchins, who had established a mission there since 1895.
It has a population of 100,000 inhabitants, including 10,000 Indians, and comprises 5 parishes with 8 Capuchin priests. There are 4 houses of Capuchin Tertiaries. See: Grajaú (State of Maranhão).