SAN LUIGI DE CACERES (SÃO LUIZ DE C.), DIOCESE OF. — In the State of Mato Grosso, Brazil, suffragan of the archdiocese of Cuiabá.
Its area is 300,000 sq. km., extending over a very rich but little-explored and sparsely inhabited territory, with a population of 50,000, of whom 45,000 are Catholics. It has four large parishes administered by the only religious order present in the diocese, the Third Regular Order of Franciscans; there are also the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Albi. Its patron is s. Luigi, king of France.
The oldest city within the boundaries of the diocese is Mato Grosso, formerly Vila Bela de S.ma Trinidad, founded in 1734 and soon made the capital of the province because of the gold mines discovered there and its strategic position near the Spanish frontiers. Its fourth governor, Luiz Albuquerque de Melo Pereira e Caceres, carried out several important works for the benefit of his province: he founded many settlements, among them Vila Maria, on 18 Oct. 1782, a name that was changed to the present S. L. de C. in homage to that governor. The religious history of the diocese is identical with that of Cuiabá until the elevation of this see to a metropolitan church, which took place on 10 March 1910. The prelatures of Porto Velho (1925) and Guajará-Mirin (1929) were detached from its territory. The first bishop of S. L. de C., Modesto Augusto Vieira,
