Archdiocese of the Most Holy Assumption of Paraguay
Also known simply, before 1929, as "of Paraguay" because it encompassed the entire territory of the Republic of the same name, situated between Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil.
It has an area of 7,458 sq. km. with a population of 700,000 inhabitants, of whom 695,000 are Catholics, distributed across 44 parishes, served by 48 diocesan priests and 80 regular clergy; it has a seminary, 12 male religious communities, and 22 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 366).
The diocese was created by Pope Paul III in 1547 under the title of Paraguay and was a suffragan of Buenos Aires from 1865. Paraguay, discovered in 1526 by Sebastián Caboto and conquered by the Spanish in 1536, was inhabited by the Guaraní, who were baptized and colonized by the Jesuit missionaries from 1610 to 1767. It was politically and ecclesiastically dependent on the Plata, now Argentina. On May 5, 1929, Pius XI, with the apostolic constitution *Universi Dominici Gregis*, created by division the dioceses of Concepción and Villarrica, declaring them suffragans of the new metropolitan See of the Most Holy Assumption, elevated to that rank at the same time.