SANTOS, DIOCESI di. — Suffragan of S. Paulo, in the State of the same name, in Brazil.
It has an area of 18,999 sq. km and a population of 377,000 inhabitants, of whom 300,000 are Catholics, with 26 parishes served by 25 diocesan priests and 28 religious priests. There are 7 male and 16 female communities.
Established by Pope Pius XI on 4 July 1924, with the apostolic constitution Ubi prassulés, by dismemberment of the archdiocese of S. Paulo, its first bishop was Msgr. José Maria Pereira Lara. It has a preparatory seminary. The titular of the diocese is Our Lady of the Apparition (Abarrecida). Pope Pius XI, by an apostolic letter of 8 July 1925, erected the Benedictine monastery of the R. M. Virgin in S. as a conventual priory.
BIBL.: AAS, 17 (1923), pp. 498-500, 530-31; O Brasil católico 1947, Juiz de Fora 1947, p. 341; Ann. Pont. 1951, p. 368. Virginio Battezzati