Tuguegarao

(TUGUEGARAONENSIS).

Diocese in the Philippines; situated in the north-eastern section of the Island of Luzon, and embraces the three civil Provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, and Nueva Viscaya, and the two groups of the Batanes and Babuyanes Islands. It was erected on 10 April, 1910, being separated from the ancient Diocese of Nueva Segovia, erected in 1595. For two hundred years the seat of the Diocese of Nueva Segovia was located at Lalloc on the Cagayan River, a city which lies within the present limits of the new Diocese of Tuguegarao. The history of the Catholic Church in the Cagayan Valley for the three hundred years preceding the Spanish-American War is practically the history of the Spanish Dominican Fathers in this territory. The diocese counts (1912) 23 native secular priests, two Spanish seculars, 17 Spanish Dominicans and 7 Belgian missionaries. There is a boys’ college in charge of the Dominican Fathers, and a girls’ academy under the direction of the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres. The population, which is entirely native, numbers about 200,000. With the exception of a few thousand Aglipayans they are all Catholics. The first bishop, the Rt. Rev. Maurice Patrick Foley, was appointed on 10 September, 1910.