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 Catholics. There are 122 parishes served by 90 diocesan priests and 68 religious; 4 male religious communities and 19 female ones (411 nuns), 1 seminary and 3 hospitals (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 435).
Until 1853 the territory of Arizona was part of the dioceses 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 a diocese by Leo XIII on 8 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 T. was separated from the ecclesiastical province of Santa Fe to form the new province of Los Angeles.
The natives were visited as early as 1539 by Friar Marcos de Niza and evangelized in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Franciscans and the Jesuits. Of the various churches founded by them, there remain only that of Tumacacuri, now partly fallen into ruin, and that of S. Xavier del Bac, founded by the famous Father Chino in 1699, the finest example of the missionary style of the Spanish Renaissance in northern Mexico, still preserved and in use today.
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