It has an area of 21,000 sq km with a population of 1,400,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,250,000 are Catholic; it has 81 parishes served by 180 diocesan priests and 14 regular clergy; it has one seminary, 5 male religious communities and 43 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 444).
The city of V. C. was raised to the status of a diocese by Pope Pius IX on 19 March 1863, as a suffragan of the archdiocese of Mexico. Its first bishop was Msgr. Francisco Suárez Peredo, who settled in Jalapa, where the episcopal residence still remains. Pope Pius XII, with the apostolic constitution Inter praecipuas of 29 June 1951, raised it to the status of an archdiocese, assigning as its suffragans the dioceses of Papantla and Tehuantepec, and elevating the cathedral to the rank and dignity of a metropolitan see. The first and present archbishop is Msgr. Emmanuel Pio López Estrada.