Diocese of Cahors Dioecesis Cadurcensis Diocèse de Cahors |
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Location | |
Country | France |
Ecclesiastical province | Toulouse |
Metropolitan | Archdiocese of Toulouse |
Statistics | |
Area | 5,216 km2 (2,014 sq mi) |
Population - Total - Catholics |
(as of 2013) 181,200 (est.) 169,900 (est.) (93.8%) |
Parishes | 89 |
Information | |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Sui iuris church | Latin Church |
Rite | Roman Rite |
Established | 3rd Century |
Cathedral | Cathedral of St. Stephen in Cahors |
Patron saint | Saint Stephen |
Secular priests | 67 (diocesan) 7 (Religious Orders) |
Current leadership | |
Pope | Francis |
Bishop | Laurent Camiade |
Metropolitan Archbishop | Robert Jean Louis Le Gall |
Website | |
Website of the Diocese |
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cahors, is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic church, in France. The diocese comprises the whole of the department of Lot.
In the beginning it was a suffragan of the archdiocese of Bourges and later, from 1676 to the time of the French Revolution, of the archdiocese of Albi. From 1802 to 1822 Cahors was under the Archbishop of Toulouse, and combined the former Diocese of Rodez with a great part of the former diocese of Vabres and diocese of Montauban. However, in 1822 it was restored almost to its pristine limits and again made suffragan to Albi.
In the diocese of Cahors in 2013 there was one priest for every 2,295 Catholics.
According to a tradition connected with the legend of St. Martial, this saint, deputed by St. Peter, came to Cahors in the first century and there dedicated a church to St. Stephen, while his disciple, St. Amadour (Amator), the Zaccheus of the Gospel and husband of St. Veronica, evangelized the diocese. In the seventeenth century these traditions were closely examined by the Abbé Antoine Raymond de Fouillac, a friend of Fénelon, and, according to him, the bones discovered at Rocamadour in 1166, and looked upon as the relics of Zaccheus, were in reality the bones of St. Amator, Bishop of Auxerre.