DIOCESE OF SINALOA (SINALOENSIS)

Diocese in the Republic of Mexico, suffragan of the Archdiocese of Durango. Its area is that of the State of Sinaloa, 27,552 sq. miles, and its population (1910) 323,499. Culiacan, the capital of the state and residence of the bishop and governor, counts a population (1910) of 13,578. The present territory of Sinaloa was discovered in 1530 by the ill-reputed D. Nuño de Guzman who founded the city of San Miguel de Culiacan. A few Spaniards established a colony there. The province of Culiacan was soon obliged to face the terrors of war brought upon it by the barbarous cruelties of Nuño and his favourite, Diego Hernandez de Proaño. So frightened was Nuño by the terrible insurrection that he removed Proaño, placing in his stead Cristóbal de Tapia, whose humanitarian measures slowly restored confidence. Although colonized from the beginning of the sixteenth century, most of the territory, excepting a few strong places, was inhabited by fierce pagan tribes, for whose conversion the Jesuits laboured early in the seventeenth century. After having subdued and evangelized the Indians of the mission of Piaxtla in a comparatively short time, and after having turned over to the Bishop of Durango the settlements under their control, the Jesuits extended their domination over the Indians living in the northern part of the actual state and at the time of their expulsion (by decree of Charles III) they fruitfully administered the missions of Chinipas and Sinaloa. In Chinipas they had residences at Guasarapes, Santa Ana, Secora, Moris, Barbaroco, Santa Ines, Serocagui, Tubares, Satebó, Baborigame, Nabogame, and San Andres; in Sinaloa (misión del Fuerte) they had residences at Mocorito, Nio, Guazave, Chicorato, Mochicave, Batacosa, Conicari, Tehueco, Ocoroni, and Bacubirito. It is notable that the towns of the misión del Rio Yaqui, which now belong to the Diocese of Sonora , were then included in the mission of Sinaloa. When the See of Durango was founded in 1620, Sinaloa, which until then had belonged to the Diocese of Guadalajara, became part of it; on the foundation (1780) of the Diocese of Sonora, it became a part of the latter. However, the residence of the bishop, after having been successively at Arispe and Alamo, passed to Culiacan, capital of Sinaloa until 1883, when Leo XIII founded the Diocese of Sinaloa, which had formed part of the ecclesiastical province of Guadalajara, and the Bishop of Sonora removed to Hermosillo. In 1891, when the new archiepiscopal See of Durango was created, Sinaloa became one of its suffragans.

The diocese has 1 seminary with 18 students; 10 parochial schools ; 3 colleges with 677 students.

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