SONORA, DIOCESE OF. – A city and diocese of the same name in Mexico (North America).
It has an area of 180,000 sq. km. with a population of 400,000 inhabitants, almost all Catholic, distributed across 20 parishes served by 48 diocesan priests; it has a seminary and 15 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 405). On 17 May 1779, Pius IV erected the city of Sonora into a diocese, making it a suffragan of the archdiocese of Mexico; in 1863 it became a suffragan of the new archdiocese of Guadalajara. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII, with the bull Illud in primis, separated the diocese from the province of Guadalajara and made it a suffragan of Durango.
BIBL.: C. Crivelli, s.V. in Cath. Enc., XIV, col. 145; anon., s.V. ENOCH. Eur. Am., LVII (1927), pp. 415-18. Enrico Josi.