Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chihuahua

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chihuahua (Latin name:"Chihuahuensis") is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico.

Erected in 1891 from the Diocese of Durango, the diocese consisted of the State of Chihuahua in its entirety. The Durango Diocese had been erected in 1620 as the diocese for the entire northern area of New Spain and is considered a mother diocese-Sonora, St Louis, New Mexico and Chihuahua were formed from Durango as population expanded in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Because of the laws promulgated by the liberal government of President Benito Juarez, the Constitution of 1857 and the Mexican Revolution, which, taken together, had the effect of disenfranchising the Catholic clergy and large swaths of Catholic laity, studying for the priesthood became a difficult proposition for candidates in Chihuahua, and, indeed, in all of Mexico. Many of Chihuahuas priests were trained at the seminaries in El Paso, TX, Santa Fe, NM and Phoenix, AZ. One of them, Fr Pedro Maldonado was ordained in the El Paso cathedral in 1918, martyred in 1937, and canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

The diocese was elevated to the level of Archdiocese in November of 1958, and now is the metropolitan of the following suffragan dioceses: Ciudad Juárez, Cuauhtémoc-Madera, Nuevo Casas Grandes, Parral and Tarahumara. All of these suffragan dioceses were formed from Chihuahua, and are located within the physical boundaries of the State of Chihuahua.

The archdiocese encompasses 73,956 square kilometers in the center of the state, and as of 2006, contained 1,176,000 Catholics, 59 parishes, 131 priests and 10 permanent deacons. The archepiscopal see is located in the Cathedral of Chihuahua.

The archdiocese is currently headed by His Excellency, the Most Reverend José Fernández Arteaga, who was appointed in 1991. His predecessor, Don Adalberto Almeida y Merino, the Archbishop Emeritus of Chihuahua, passed from this life on 21 June, 2008, at the age of 92 at his home in Colonia Nombre de Dios, Chihuahua.

Ordinaries

*José de Jesús Ortiz y Rodríguez +(1893–1901)
*Nicolás Pérez Gavilán y Echeverría +(1902–1919)
*Antonio Guízar y Valencia +(1920–1969)
*Adalberto Almeida y Merino +(1969–1991)
*José Fernández Arteaga (1991– )

References

*cite web|title = Archdiocese of Chihuahua| work=Catholic-Hierarchy|url =http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dchih.html|accessdate =2007-07-31