Uruguaiana, Diocese of

URUGUAIANA, DIOCESE of. – City and diocese in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

It has an area of 89,953 sq. km, with a population of 668,747, of whom 650,000 are Catholics. It has 34 parishes, with a minor seminary, 39 diocesan priests and 42 religious priests, 15 male and 47 female religious communities. The diocese was erected by Bl. Pius X with the bull Praedecestorum nostrorum of 15 August 1910, and its first bishop was Msgr. Ermete Giuseppe Pinheiro, who died in 1941. The diocese is a suffragan of Porto Alegre. The titular of the diocese is St. Michael the Archangel, and that of the Cathedral is St. Anne.