SANTIAGO DEL CHILE, ARCHDIOCESE OF. Capital city and archdiocese of the Republic of Chile, in South America.
Covering an area of 16,087 sq. km., it has 1,620,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,450,000 are Catholic; it has 116 parishes served by 235 diocesan priests and 295 regular clergy; there are 3 seminaries and a Catholic University founded in 1888; 66 male and 140 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, pp. 364-65). The diocese was created by Pius IV on 27 June 1561 as a suffragan of the archdiocese of Lima; Pope Gregory XVI elevated it to metropolitan status on 23 June 1840, assigning as its suffragans the dioceses of Linares, Rancagua, San Felipe, Talca, and Valparaíso. The cathedral, in Romanesque style, is dedicated to the Assumption.
THE CENTRE OF STUDIES. — I. The metropolitan seminary of the Holy Guardian Angels, founded in 1587, declared interdiocesan for the dioceses created in 1925 from the division of Santiago (cf. AAS, 18 [1926], p. 203), and granted the title of “Pontifical” (decree of the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities, 15 Aug. 1929), has enjoyed governmental recognition of its courses since 1879. A new building is under construction. Its library is used by the theological faculty of the Catholic University.
2. The Catholic University, founded on 21 June 1888 by decree of Archbishop M. Casanova and approved by Leo XIII on 28 July 1889, is one of the first Catholic universities in Latin America. In 1930 it received canonical erection from the Holy See (cf. AAS, 22 [1930], p. 362). It comprises faculties of philosophy and letters, law and political and social sciences, physical and mathematical sciences, architecture and fine arts, agriculture, commerce and economic sciences, medicine, and the faculty of theology, inaugurated on 19 Apr. 1935 and canonically established on 16 July 1938; Pius XI on 8 Sept. 1938 approved its statutes, together with the General Statutes (Regolamento General de la Universidad Católica). The university enjoys civil legal personality (university law of 4 Nov. 1929; DL 27 Nov. 1929). Its Grand Chancellor is the cardinal archbishop of Santiago; the bishops of the Republic serve as its “protectors.” Today about 600 professors teach there to several thousand students.