Taubaté, Diocese of

TAUBATÉ, DIOCESI di. – City and diocese in the State of São Paulo, Brazil.

It has an area of 10,050 sq. km., with a population of 397,954 inhabitants, of whom 350,000 are Catholics. It has 32 parishes, with 65 diocesan priests and 50 religious priests, 1 seminary, 11 male and 44 female religious communities. The diocese was erected by Bl. Pius X, by the bull Diocesium nimiam amplitudinem, of 7 June 1908, and its first bishop was Msgr. Epaminonda Nunes de Avila e Silva, who died in 1935. The diocese is a suffragan of São Paulo. The cathedral’s titular saint is St. Francis das Chagas.