Florianopolis, Archdiocese of

FLORIANOPOLIS, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - In the State of Santa Catarina in Brazil and metropolis of the ecclesiastical province, which has the same boundaries as the State. Its suffragan dioceses are Lages and Joinville.

The archdiocese extends over 20,855 sq km with 510,000 inhabitants, of whom 450,000 are Catholics. There are 55 parishes, 48 diocesan priests and 68 regulars. There are moreover houses of Franciscans, Jesuits, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Servites, 7 religious congregations of women, the major seminary St. Leopoldo in Rio Grande do Sul, and a minor seminary in the city of Azambuja (1948). F. is situated at 27° 33' 48'' South latitude, at 48° 54' 00'' West-Greenwich longitude. It has about 50,000 inhabitants.

In 1684 the bandeirantes, explorers coming from São Paulo, established a settlement at Laguna. The Portuguese in turn, to secure their rear in their march toward the south, occupied the Island of Santa Catarina, settling it with colonists native to the Azores (1738). The village was named Desterro and is the present-day F. The city suffered considerably in the war between the Portuguese and the Spanish, toward the end of the 18th century, and from then on its progress has been uninterrupted in every respect. For administrative reasons the territory of F. formed part of the dioceses of Rio de Janeiro until 1894 and of Curitiba until 1908, when it was detached and erected into a diocese, receiving its first bishop in the person of Msgr. Giovanni Becker. In 1912 the latter was transferred to the church of Porto Alegre, and in 1914 Msgr. Gioacchino Domenico de Oliveira succeeded him at F., becoming its archbishop when that see was elevated to an archdiocese by the apostolic constitution Inter praeclipus of 17 January 1927. F. takes part in the present-day religious movement in Brazil (v.). Three diocesan synods have been convoked there. In the metropolis newspapers of Catholic orientation are published, and there is also a government secondary school directed by the Jesuits.

Maurilio Cesar de Lima