TUCSON, DIOCESE OF. - City and diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Los Angeles, State of Arizona, U.S.A.
It has a territory of 57,000 sq. km., with a total population of 600,000 inhabitants, of whom 200,000 are Catholic. There are 122 parishes served by 90 diocesan priests and 68 religious; 4 male religious communities and 19 female (411 sisters), 1 seminary, and 3 hospitals (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 435).
Until 1853 the territory of Arizona was part of the diocese of Durango in Mexico, and in 1859 it was annexed to the diocese of Santa Fe. It was then elevated to an apostolic vicariate in 1868 and raised to the status of a diocese by Leo XIII on 18 May 1897 for the entire territory of Arizona as a suffragan of Santa Fe. The first apostolic vicar was Msgr. G. B. Salpointe. Pius XI, with the apostolic constitution Nimis amplas ecclesiasticas provincias of 11 July 1936, erected the archdiocese of Los Angeles, and Tucson was separated from the ecclesiastical province of Santa Fe to form the new province of Los Angeles.
The indigenous peoples were first visited in 1539 by Friar Marcos de Niza and evangelized in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Franciscans and Jesuits. Of the various churches they founded, only that of Tumacacuri remains, now partly in ruins, and that of San Xavier del Bac, founded by the celebrated Fr. Kino in 1699, the finest example of the missionary style of the Spanish Renaissance in northern Mexico, still preserved and in use.