Archdiocese of Mbarara

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mbarara (Archidioecesis Mbararaensis) in Uganda covers an area of 10,980 km² in southwestern Uganda. As of 2003, of the 2.2 million citizen in the area 856,168 are member of the Catholic church. The archdiocese if subdivided into 25 parishes, and has 114 priests altogether.

The archdiocese is the metropolitan for the dioceses Fort Portal, Hoima, Kabale and Kasese.

[edit] History

The archdiocese dates back to the Vicariate Apostolic of Ruwenzori, which was erected on May 28 1934 by splitting the Vicariate Apostolic of Uganda. On March 25 1953 it was elevated to a diocese and renamed after its principal town Mbarara. 1961 territory was lost to the newly erected diocese of Fort Portal, and again in 1966 to the diocese of Kabale. On January 2 1999 the diocese was elevated to an archdiocese. Before being an archdiocese the diocese was a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Kampala.