oldest sees in the Americas, which encompasses the entire island of that name except for the part belonging to the Republic of Haiti. It also bears the name Ciudad Trujillo from its political and ecclesiastical capital.
It has an area of 49,543 sq. km. with a population of 2,185,000 inhabitants, of whom 2,165,000 are Catholic: it comprises 66 parishes, served by 44 diocesan priests and 53 regular clergy; it has a seminary, 25 male religious communities and 38 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1952, p. 367).
The island was visited by Christopher Columbus, and on 6 January 1494 the apostolic vicar Fr. Bernardo Boly celebrated the first Mass there. In 1508 Pope Julius II established the metropolitan see of Jaragua with two suffragans: La Vega and Lares de Guijaba, but three years later, when that metropolitan see was suppressed, the sees of Santo Domingo and La Vega arose in its place, suffragans of Seville in Spain. Leo [X] in 1528 wished the two dioceses to be merged into that of Santo Domingo, which Paul III in 1548 raised to a metropolitan see. The ordinary retains the title of Primate of the Indies. The cathedral was begun in 1514, but in 1540 work was suspended due to the departure of the architect A. Rodriguez for Peru. Among its relics is to be noted the painting of the Immaculate Conception by Velázquez and the great funerary monument of Christopher Columbus. — See pl. CXXII.