Archdiocese of Chihuahua

Archdiocese of Chihuahua Archidioecesis Chihuahuensis Arquidiócesis de Chihuahua
Catedral Metropolitana
Location
Country	Mexico
Ecclesiastical province	Province of Chihuahua
Metropolitan	Chihuahua, Chihuahua
Statistics
Area	28,565 sq mi (73,980 km2)
Population - Total - Catholics	(as of 2006) 1,321,000 1,176,000 (89%)
Parishes	59
Information
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Rite	Roman Rite
Established	23 June 1891 (126 years ago)
Cathedral	Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Our Lady of Regla and St. Francis of Assisi
Current leadership
Pope	Francis
Metropolitan Archbishop	Constancio Miranda Weckmann
Map

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chihuahua[1] (Latin: Archidioecesis 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[2], St Louis[3], New Mexico[4][5] 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 Juárez, 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 Cathedral of El Paso in 1918, martyred in 1937, and canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2000 [6].