Silva Porto, Diocese of

SILVA PORTO, DIOCESI di. — City and diocese in Angola, a Portuguese possession of West Africa.

It has an area of 625,440 sq. km. and a population of 943,529 inhabitants, of whom 63,536 are Catholics; it has 2 parishes served by 48 diocesan priests (Ann. Pont., 1952, p. 380). The diocese was created by Pope Pius XII by the apostolic constitution Solennibus Conventionibus of 4 September 1940, as a suffragan see of Loanda, and by elevating the parish church of S. P., dedicated to the martyr St Lawrence, to the dignity of a cathedral.