TUCUMÁN, DIOCESE OF. – Capital city and diocese in the province of the same name in Argentina.
Over an area of 27,000 sq. km, it has a population of 660,000 inhabitants, of whom 600,000 are Catholic; the clergy consists of 55 diocesan priests and 86 religious, distributed across 30 parishes; it has a seminary; 17 male and 40 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 435).
The diocese was erected by Pope Leo XIII on 15 February 1897, from territory of the Diocese of Salta, as a suffragan of Buenos Aires. Its first bishop was Msgr. Pablo Padilla y Barcena (d. 1921). It is currently a suffragan of Santa Fe. The cathedral is dedicated to St Michael.
BIBL.: anon., s. V. ENOCH. Eur. Ann., LXIV, pp. 1319-22; A. A. Mac Erlean, s. V. in The Cath. Enc., XV, p. 85. Enrico Josi