TRUJILLO, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - Archdiocese and capital city of the department of La Libertad and of the homonymous province in Peru.
It has an area of 38,393 sq. km. and a population of 610,000 inhabitants, of whom 597,800 are Catholic; it comprises 53 parishes served by 53 diocesan priests and 35 regular clergy; it has 11 male and 12 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 433).
The diocese was established by Pope Gregory XIII on 13 April 1577, as a suffragan of Lima, and included the departments of Lambayeque, Libertad, Piura and the province of Tumbes. This arrangement was confirmed by Paul V in 1611, and the first bishop was Msgr. Alfonso de Guzmán. On 23 May 1943, Pope Pius XII, with the apostolic constitution Inter praecipuas, elevated it to an archdiocese, assigning as its suffragans the dioceses of Cajamarca, Chachapoyas, Piura and the Prelature of Moyobamba, and raising the cathedral to the rank and dignity of a metropolitan see. By a decree of 1824, the building of the Society of Jesus was taken over to form the University of Trujillo.