TOLEDO IN AMERICA, DIOCESE OF — Diocese and city in the ecclesiastical province of Cincinnati (U.S.A.).
The diocese was created by Pope Pius X on 15 April 1910, by separating it from the Diocese of Cleveland. At its establishment, the territory counted 125,000 Catholics, while today there are 210,000 out of a total population of 1,116,819 souls dispersed over a territory of 8,222 square miles. The Catholics are concentrated especially in Toledo, and at the time of the diocese’s creation there were 20 parishes in the city. Today, in the Diocese of Toledo (Toletana in America), there are 256 diocesan priests and 66 religious priests in 6 different communities, 155 parishes, 24 chapels, 5 religious communities of women (1,525 sisters), 52 seminarians, 2 scholastics, 1 college, 1 orphanage, and 5 hospitals.
The city, situated on the shores of Lake Erie, lay along the route of the great explorers of the 17th century. The priest Edmund Burke, vicar general for “Upper Canada,” settled in 1794 at Monroe (now Frenchtown), Michigan. After 1830, there were some Catholic groups and a resident priest at St. Mary’s, Tiffin.