The Archdiocese of San Salvador is a

Latin Church , native_name_lang = la , image = San Giovanni in Laterano - Rome.jpg , imagewidth = 250px , alt = Façade of the Archbasilica of St. John in Lateran , caption = Archbasilica of Saint Joh ...

ecclesiastical territory or

archdiocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...

. Its archepiscopal see is the Salvadoran capital,

San Salvador San Salvador (; ) is the capital and the largest city of El Salvador and its eponymous department. It is the country's political, cultural, educational and financial center. The Metropolitan Area of San Salvador, which comprises the capital i ...

, and the surrounding region. The current Archbishop of San Salvador is

José Luis Escobar Alas José Luis Escobar Alas (born 10 March 1959 in Suchitoto), Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador, succeeded Archbishop Emeritus Fernando Sáenz Lacalle as the seventh archbishop, a successor of Archbishop Óscar Romero who was assassinat ...

. His

cathedra A ''cathedra'' is the raised throne of a bishop in the early Christian basilica. When used with this meaning, it may also be called the bishop's throne. With time, the related term ''cathedral'' became synonymous with the "seat", or principa ...

is in

San Salvador Cathedral The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Savior ( es, Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador) is the cathedral, cathedral church of the Catholic Church, Catholic Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador, Archdiocese of San Salvador in San Salvador ...

, otherwise the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Saviour (). The city also has a former cathedral, now the Basilica of the

Sacred Heart of Jesus The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus ( la, Cor Jesu Sacratissimum) is one of the most widely practised and well-known Catholic devotions, wherein the heart of Jesus is viewed as a symbol of "God's boundless and passionate love for mankind". This dev ...

( es, Basílica del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús), and a

minor basilica In the Catholic Church, a basilica is a designation given by the Pope to a church building. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular ...

dedicated to the Virgin of Guadelupe, the . The Archdiocese of San Salvador is the sole

metropolitan see Metropolitan may refer to: * Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories * Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England * Metropolitan county, a t ...

in El Salvador, with seven

suffragan diocese A suffragan diocese is one of the dioceses other than the metropolitan archdiocese that constitute an ecclesiastical province. It exists in some Christian denominations, in particular the Catholic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria ...

s in its

ecclesiastical province An ecclesiastical province is one of the basic forms of jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United State ...

: the Dioceses of Chalatenango, San Miguel, San Vicente, Santa Ana,

Santiago de María Santiago de María is a municipality in the Usulután department of El Salvador El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is border ...

Sonsonate Sonsonate () is a city and municipality of El Salvador. It is the capital of the department of Sonsonate; on the Sensunapan River and the Pan-American Highway from San Salvador to the Pacific port of Acajutla, south. Pop. (2007), about 71,541. E ...

, and

Zacatecoluca Zacatecoluca () is the capital municipality of the La Paz Department of El Salvador. Located in Southern El Salvador, in the Rio Lempa valley, at the foot of San Vicente (Chinchotepec) Volcano. A commercial center for the surrounding agricultur ...

. The Archdiocese of San Salvador has an unusual arrangement in which the auxiliary bishop,

Gregorio Rosa Chávez Gregorio Rosa Chávez (; born 3 September 1942) is a Salvadoran Latin Catholic prelate who was an Auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador from 1982 to 2022. He was a close collaborator of the slain Archbishop Saint Óscar Romero. Pope Francis made ...

, is a

cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...

, whilst the archbishop is not. The Archbishop of San Salvador retains ordinary authority over the archdiocese.

Statistics

, it pastorally served 2,322,000 Catholics (74.0% of 3,137,000 total) on 3,295 km² in 162 parishes and 6 missions with 354 priests (158 diocesan, 196 religious), 1 deacon, 1,471 lay religious (343 brothers, 1,128 sisters) and 107 seminarians.

History

What is currently the territory of the Republic of

previously was part of the Spanish colonial

Captaincy General A captaincy ( es, capitanía , pt, capitania , hr, kapetanija) is a historical administrative division of the former Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires. It was instituted as a method of organization, directly associated with the home-rule a ...

(governorship) of

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

and, ecclesiastically, of the Archdiocese of Guatemala. Until 1842, there were four church regions in El Salvador, which reported to the San Salvador region, the most important one: Santa Ana, Sonsonate, San Vicente and San Miguel. *

Pope Gregory XVI Pope Gregory XVI ( la, Gregorius XVI; it, Gregorio XVI; born Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari; 18 September 1765 – 1 June 1846) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 2 February 1831 to his death in 1 June 1846. He h ...

erected the Diocese of the Divine Savior (in Spanish, ''El Salvador'' means "The Savior"), separating the territory of the Republic of El Salvador from the Archdiocese of Guatemala, by Papal bull dated 28 September 1842, constituting it as a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Guatemala. * On 22 February 1913, it was promoted as Metropolitan Archdiocese of San Salvador / Sancti Salvatoris in America (Latin), having lost territory to establish as first

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdictiona ...

sees Diocese of San Miguel and

Diocese of Santa Ana The Diocese of Santa Ana is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolis (religious jurisdiction), metropolitan Roman Catholic ...

* It lost territories again : on 18 December 1943, to establish Diocese of San Vicente, and on 30 December 1987, to establish Diocese of Chalatenango, both as its suffragans. * It enjoyed

Papal visit Papal travel outside Rome has been historically rare, and voluntary travel of the pope was non-existent for the first 500 years. Pope John Paul II (1978–2005) undertook more pastoral trips than all his predecessors combined. Pope Francis (2013� ...

s from

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

in March 1983 and February 1996.

Twentieth Century policy

Under three archbishops,

Luis Chávez y González Luis Chávez y González (1901 – 1987) was the seventh Bishop and third Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador, and immediate predecessor of Archbishop Óscar Romero. Unlike Romero, who served for three years before being assassinated in ...

Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez Oscar or Oskar is a masculine given name of Irish origin. Etymology The name is derived from two elements in Irish: the first, ''os'', means "deer"; the second element, ''car'', means "loving" or "friend", thus "deer-loving one" or "friend of deer" ...

, and

Arturo Rivera y Damas Arturo Rivera y Damas (September 30, 1923 – November 26, 1994) was the ninth Bishop and fifth Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador. Msgr. Rivera's term as archbishop (1983–1994) coincided with the Salvadoran Civil War. He was the immediate ...

, the archdiocese saw over fifty years of a progressive pastoral ministry influenced by the currents of the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions) ...

and a Latin American church trend that later was known as

Liberation Theology Liberation theology is a Christian theological approach emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed. In certain contexts, it engages socio-economic analyses, with "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". In ...

. Critics interpreted the Church's advocacy for the poor as fomenting a

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

revolution and targeted the clergy for assassination. Two bishops, including Archbishop Romero, were assassinated, as were twenty six priests (including Fr.

Rutilio Grande Rutilio Grande García, SJ (5 July 1928 in El Paisnal – 12 March 1977 in Aguilares) was a Jesuit priest in El Salvador. He was assassinated in 1977, along with two other Salvadorans. He was the first priest assassinated before the Salvad ...

), three nuns and countless catechists and Church workers. The post-Civil War period saw a return to traditional spirituality under the watch of the conservative Archbishop

Fernando Sáenz Lacalle Fernando Sáenz Lacalle (16 November 1932 – 28 April 2022) was a Spanish Roman Catholic prelate, 10th Bishop and sixth Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador. He was the successor of Arturo Rivera y Damas. Sáenz held the post once held b ...

, a former military chaplain and member of

Opus Dei Opus Dei, formally known as the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei ( la, Praelatura Sanctae Crucis et Operis Dei), is an institution of the Catholic Church whose members seek personal Christian holiness and strive to imbue their work an ...

Sexual abuse cases

In November 2015, sex abuse scandals in the Archdiocese of San Salvador became public when the archdiocese's third highest ranking priest, Jesus Delgado, who was also the biographer and personal secretary of the Salvadoran Archbishop

Oscar Romero Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology) ...

was dismissed by the archdiocese after its investigation showed that he had molested a girl, now 42 years of age, when she was between the ages of 9 and 17. Due to the statute of limitations, Delgado could not face criminal charges. In December 2016, a canonical court convicted Delgado and two other El Salvador priests, Francisco Galvez and Antonio Molina, of committing acts of sex abuse between the years 1980 and 2000 and

laicized In the canon law of the Catholic Church, the loss of clerical state (commonly referred to as laicization, dismissal, defrocking, and degradation) is the removal of a bishop, priest, or deacon from the status of being a member of the clergy. The t ...

them from the priesthood. In November 2019, the archdiocese acknowledged sex abuse committed by a priest identified as Leopoldo Sosa Tolentino in 1994 and issued a public apology to his victim. Tolentino was suspended from ministry and began the canonical trial process. Another El Salvador priest was laicized in 2019 after pleading guilty to sex abuse in a Vatican trial and is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in a criminal trial.

Ecclesiastical province

The ecclesiastical province of San Salvador comprises the whole country, consisting of the Metropolitan's archbishopric and the following

sees: * Diocese of Chalatenango * Diocese of San Miguel * Diocese of San Vicente *

* Diocese of Santiago de María * Diocese of Sonsonate * Diocese of Zacatecoluca

Bishops

Ordinaries

;''Bishops of San Salvador'' ;''Archbishops of San Salvador''

Coadjutor Bishops

* Mariano Ortiz y Urruela (1866–1873) *

Luis Cárcamo y Rodríguez Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archaic ...

(1871–1875) (overlapped with Ortiz y Urrela)

Auxiliary Bishops

* Tomás Miguel Pineda y Saldaña (1848–1853), appointed Bishop here * Santiago Ricardo Vilanova y Meléndez (1913–1915), appointed Bishop of Santa Ana * José Alfonso Belloso y Sánchez (1919–1927), appointed Archbishop here * Pedro Arnoldo Aparicio y Quintanilla, S.D.B. (1946–1948), appointed Bishop of San Vicente * Rafael Valladares y Argumedo (1956–1961) *

(1960–1977), appointed Bishop of Santiago de María and later Archbishop of San Salvador * José Eduardo Alvarez Ramírez, C.M. (1965–1969), appointed Bishop of San Miguel * Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (1970–1974), appointed Bishop of Santiago de María * Marco René Revelo Contreras (1978–1981), appointed Bishop of Santa Ana * Cardinal

(1982–present); elevated to Cardinal in 2017

Other priests of this diocese who became bishops

* Juan Antonio Dueñas y Argumedo, appointed Bishop of San Miguel in 1913 * Francisco José Castro y Ramírez, appointed Bishop of Santiago de María in 1956 * William Ernesto Iraheta Rivera, appointed Bishop of Santiago de María in 2016

References

External links

GCatholic - data for most sections
{{DEFAULTSORT:San Salvador, Roman Catholic Archdiocese Roman Catholic dioceses in El Salvador *

Religious organizations established in 1842 Religion is usually defined as a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, tran ...

Roman Catholic dioceses and prelatures established in the 19th century

1842 establishments in El Salvador __NOTOC__ Year 184 ( CLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Eggius and Aelianus (or, less frequently, year 937 ''Ab ...