VERA CRUZ (residence JALAPA), ARCHDIOCESE of. - City and archdiocese of the State of V. Mexico.
It has an area of 21,000 sq. km. and a population of 1,400,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,250,000 are Catholics; it has 81 parishes served by 180 diocesan and 14 regular priests; it has one seminary, 5 male and 43 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 444).
The city of V. C. was raised to a diocese by Pope Pio IX on 19 March 1863, as a suffragan of the archdiocese of Messico. Its first bishop was Msgr. Francisco Suárez Peredo, who took up residence in Jalapa, where the episcopal residence still remains. Pope Pio XII, by the apostolic constitution Inter praecipuas of 29 June 1951, raised it to an archdiocese, assigning to it as suffragans the dioceses of Papantla and Tehuantepec, and raising the Cathedral to the rank and dignity of a metropolitan church. Its first and present archbishop is Msgr. Emmanuele Pio López Estrada.