The Roman Catholic Diocese of Imperatriz ( la, Dioecesis Imperatricis) is a suffragan Latin

diocese 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 associa ...

in the

Ecclesiastical province An ecclesiastical province is one of the basic forms of jurisdiction in Christian Churches with traditional hierarchical structure, including Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. In general, an ecclesiastical province consists of seve ...

of the Metropolitan of

São Luís do Maranhão SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U ...

in northeastern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Its

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominatio ...

episcopal see is Catedral Nossa Senhora da Fátima, dedicated to

Our Lady of Fatima Our or OUR may refer to: * The possessive form of " we" * Our (river), in Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany * Our, Belgium, a village in Belgium * Our, Jura, a commune in France * Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), a government utility regulat ...

, in the city of Imperatriz,

Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...

state.

History

* Established on 27 June 1987 as Diocese of Imperatriz, on territory split off from the Diocese of Carolina.

Statistics

As per 2014, it pastorally served 414,000 Catholics (79.9% of 518,000 total) on 25,958 km² in 27 parishes and 2 missions with 43 priests (29 diocesan, 14 religious), 1 deacon, 65 lay religious (19 brothers, 46 sisters) and 7 seminarians .

Bishops

(all Roman rite)

Episcopal ordinaries

;''Suffragan Bishops of Imperatriz'' * Affonso Felippe Gregory (1987.07.16 – retired 2005.08.03), also President of

Caritas Internationalis Caritas Internationalis is a confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social service organizations operating in over 200 countries and territories worldwide. Collectively and individually, their missions are to work to build a bet ...

(1991 – 1999); died 2008; previously

Titular Bishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox ...

Drusiliana Drusiliana was a ''civitas'' (town) of Roman North Africa. Bingham called it a city of the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis. An inscription of Constantine the Great was found in the city ruins and it appears on the Tabula Peutingeriana The ...

(1979.08.02 – 1987.07.16) as Auxiliary Bishop of

São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

(Brazil) (1979.08.02 – 1987.07.16) * Gilberto Pastana de Oliveira (2005.08.03 – 2017.04.19), also Coadjutor Bishop of Crato (Brazil) (2016.05.18 – 2016.12.28), succeeding as Bishop of Crato (2016.12.28 – ...) * Vilson Basso,

Dehonians The Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart ( la, Congregatio Sacerdotum a Sacro Corde Iesu) abbreviated SCI, also called the Dehonians, is a Catholic clerical religious congregation of Pontifical Right for men in the Catholic Church f ...

(S.C.I.) (2017.04.19 – ...), previously Bishop of Caxias do Maranhão (Brazil) (2010.03.19 – 2017.04.19).

Other priest of this diocese who became bishops

* Francisco Lima Soares, appointed Bishop of Carolina, Maranhão in 2018

Sources and external links