SONORA, DIOCESE of. – City and diocese of the state of the same name in Mexico (North America).
It has an area of 180,000 sq km and a population of 400,000 inhabitants, almost all Catholics, distributed among 20 parishes served by 48 diocesan priests; it has 1 seminary and 15 women’s religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 405). On 7 May 1779, Pius VI established the city of S. as 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, by the bull Illud in primis, separated the diocese from the ecclesiastical 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