Diocese of Cadiz

(Gaditana et Septensis.)

Suffragan of Seville. Its jurisdiction covers nearly all the civil province of Cadiz; only a few places, like Sanlucar, belong to the Diocese of Seville, or, like Grazalema, to that of Malaga. Cadiz (369,382) is the residence of the bishop, and is situated on the Isle of Leon, separated from the mainland by a narrow and torturous channel; very high and thick walls surrounded the city, which from the sea presents a very picturesque appearance. The greater part of the old town was consumed in the conflagration of 1569. The city was retaken in 1262 from the Moors, and raised by Urban IV to episcopal rank in 1263 at the request of Alfonso X. Its first bishop was Fray Juan Martinez. After the Christians had won from the Moors the Plaza (stronghold) de Algeciras, the ordinaries of Cadiz bore the title of Bishop of Cadiz and Algeciras, granted by Clement VI in 1352. This see counted amongst its prelates in 1441 Cardinal Fray Juan de Torquemada, an eminent Dominican theologian jurisconsult, who took a leading part in the Councils of Basle and Florence, and defended in his “Summe de Ecclesiâ” the direct power of the pope in temporal matters. By the Concordat of 1851 the Diocese of Ceuta, also suffragen of Seville, was suppressed and incorporated with that of Cadiz, whose bishop is regularly Apostolic Administrator of Ceuta. There are in Cadiz 32 parishes and 110 priests; in Ceuta, 22 parishes, 26 priests, and 11,700 inhabitants.