Santo Domingo (Ciudad Trujillo), Archdiocese of

SANTO DOMINGO (Ciudad Trujillo), Archdiocese of. - An archdiocese in the Antilles, one of the oldest sees in the Americas, embracing the entire island of that name except the part belonging to the Republic of Haiti. It also bears the name Ciudad Trujillo from the 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 Catholics: it has 66 parishes, served by 44 diocesan priests and 153 regulars; 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 Boyl celebrated the first Mass there. In 1508 Pope Julius II created the metropolitan see of Jaragua with its two suffragans: La Vega and Lares de Guijaba, but three years later, that metropolitan see having been suppressed, the two sees of S. D. and La Vega arose there, suffragans of Seville in Spain. Leo X, in 1528, wished the two dioceses to be merged into that of S. D., which Paul III in 1548 elevated to a metropolitan see. The Ordinary retains the title of primate of the Indies. The Cathedral was begun in 1514, but in 1540 the works were suspended because the architect A. Rodriguez departed for Peru. Among the treasures, noteworthy are the painting of the Immaculate Conception by Velasquez and the great sepulchral monument of Christopher Columbus. - See plate CXXII.