Roman Catholic Diocese of Cadiz Y Ceuta

Roman Catholic Diocese Of Cadiz Y Ceuta

The Roman Catholic diocese of Cádiz y Ceuta is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Spain. The diocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Seville.

Its jurisdiction covers nearly all the civil province of Cádiz; only a few places, like Sanlucar, belong to the diocese of Seville, or, like Grazalema, to the diocese of Malaga. Cádiz (369,382) is the residence of the bishop.

Cádiz was raised by Urban IV to episcopal rank in 1263 at the request of king Alfonso X, a year after its Reconquista on the Moors. Its first bishop was Fray Juan Martinez. After the Christians had won from the Moors the Plaza (stronghold) de Algeciras, the ordinaries of Cádiz bore the title of Bishop of Cádiz and Algeciras, granted by Clement VI in 1352.

The see counted amongst its prelates in 1441 Cardinal 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 suffragan of Seville, was suppressed and incorporated with that of Cádiz, whose bishop was regularly Apostolic Administrator of Ceuta.