PORT
289
PORTO
Congregation of Notre Dame; Sister Servants of the
Immaculate Heart of Mary; Daughters of Wisdom;
Sisters of the Presentation; Ursuline Sisters; Sisters
of St. Joseph.
CL.1HKE, Deceased Bishops (New 1 ork. 1S72) ; Shea, History of the Catholic Ch. in U. S. (New York, 18SS) ; You.ng, Diocese of Portland (Boston, 1899); Wiltzius, Official Directory, 1910.
John W. Houlihan.
Port Louis, Diocese op (Portds Ludovici), com- prises the islands of Mauritius, Rodriguez, Chagos, and Diego Garcia. The Island of Mauritius was dis- covered by the Portuguese about 1.507, but no settle- ment was formed. The Dutch who visited it in 1598 called it Mauritius in honour of the Stadtholder, IVIauriee of Nassau; they sent a colony there in 1644, but abandoned the island in 1710 or 1712. When the French took possession in 171.5 they changed the name to He de France. It was long a French trading centre, and in 1789 became the seat of the French Govern- ment in the East. It was captured by the English in 1810, being formally ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Paris in 1814. The French language and law have been jireserved, but the ancient name was restored by the British Government. Port Louis, the capital, on the north-west coast, is the seat of the Cath- olic and Anglican bishoprics, and also the residence of the colonial governor, at present (1911) Sir Cavendish Boyle, K. C. M. G. The census of 1901 gave the total population of the island as 373,336, of whom 113,244 were Catholics, and that of the town of Port Louis as 52,740. There are Government schools and denomina- tional schools aided by the State; Catholics constitute 64.71 per cent of the pupils.
In 1712 a prefecture .\postolic, including the islands of Madagascar, Reunion (then Bourbon), Mauritius etc., was established in the Indian Ocean and confided to the Congregation of St. Vincent de Paul. By a Brief of 6 October, 1740, Benedict XIV made the mis- sion dependent on the Archdiocese of Paris. After the British occupation of Mauritius a vicariate Apostolic was established which, by a Decree of 21 January, 1819, was confided to Rt. Rev. Edward Bede Slater, Vicar Apostolic of the Cape of Good Hope and the Island of Madagascar; shortly afterwards the region of New Holland was annexed to the vicariate. In 1829 the Island of Madagascar was separated from the vicariate, and in 1834 the district of New Holland was suppressed. The Cape of Good Hope, the Island of St. Helena, and the Seychelles Islands were cut off from the mission of Mauritius in 1837, 1851, and 1852 respectively, the Diocese of Port Louis having been erected by a Decree of 1 December, 1847. The pres- ent bishop, Rt. Rev. James R. Bilsborrow, elected to the see on 13 Sept., 1910, succeeded the Rt. Rev. Peter Augustus O'Neill (b. at Liverpool 22 Dec, 1841 ; made his profession as a Benedictine at Douai 10 Dec, 1861; was ordained 6 April, 1867; elevated to the episcopate 22 May, 1896, consecrated 29 June of that year). The present Catholic population of the dio- cese is 119,000; there are 52 priests, 27 churches, and 40 chapels. Religious orders include Jesuits and Fathers of the Holy Ghost, Loreto Sisters, Sisters of Charity of Perpetual Help, and the Daughters of Mary.
MisslONES CatholiCjE: Annuaire pontif. (1911); Keller, Madagascar, Mauritius, and other East African Islands ihrjndon).
Bi,.\NCHE M. Kelly.
Porto. See Oporto, Diocese of.
Porto Alegre, Archdiocese of (Portalegren- sis), in Eastern Brazil. Porto Alegre, the capital and chief port of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, is built on the northern extremity of Lagoa dos Patos and on the eastern shore of the estuary called Rio Guahyba. It was founded in 1742 by a colony of immigrants from the Azores, and was first known as Porto dos Cazaes. In 1770 Governor Jose Mar- XII.— 19
cellino de Figuereido selected it as his official resi-
dence, and in 1773 the town received its present
name. Raised to the rank of a city in 1822, it was
given in 1841 in recognition of its loyalty the title
"leal e valorosa". The city is the chief commercial
centre of the state, and has a harbour accessible to
vessels of not more than ten feet draught. The
principal industry of the state is stock-raising, which
was first organized by the Jesuit missionaries in the
seventeenth century. The municipio has an area
of 931 sq. miles; the latest census returns assign the
city (including several districts not within the munici-
pal boundaries) a population of 73,574 inhabitants,
for the most part of German and Italian extraction.
The climate, while cool and bracing in winter, is
intensely hot during the summer; the average annual
rainfall exceeds thirty inches. Porto Alegre has
four newspapers, including the Catholic "Deutsches
Volksblatt"; the state institutions include the mu-
nicipal palace, the governor's palace, the school of
engineering, the mihtary college, school of medicine,
and four general schools. Christianity was first
introduced into the country by the Jesuits in the
early part of the seventeenth century, after the
Indian slave hunters of Sao Paulo had forced them to
abandon their missions in LTpper Parand. In 1848
the state, which has an area of about 91,300 sq. miles,
was formed into the Diocese of Sao Pedro do Rio
Grande do Sul. On 4 March, 1910, Pius X divided
the territory of the state between this see (which he
raised to metropolitan rank with the title of Porto
Alegre, now appointed its seat), and its newly
created suffragans, Pelotas, Santa Maria, Uruguayana,
and Florianopolis. The religious statistics at the
time of the di^^sion were: 1,400,000 Catholics,
115,000 Protestants (including 5,000 Methodists),
134 parishes and parochial charges, 245 priests (in-
cluding 225 regular), 68 brothers, 58 seminarians,
nearly 400 sisters, 6 gymnasiums, 2 normal schools,
1 agricultural school, and more than 500 schools and
colleges. The principal religious orders of the arch-
diocese are the Jesuits (St. Joseph's Church, gym-
nasium etc.), the Pallottini Fathers, the Sisters of
St. Francis, the Sisters of St. Catherine, the Sisters
of St. Joseph, the Evangelical School Brothers, the
Capuchins (who have charge of the episcopal semi-
nary). Nearly all the hospitals are managed by
nuns. The chief churches are the Cathedral of Our
Lady Madre de Deus, the church of Nossa Senhora
des Dores, and the (Jesuit) church of St. Joseph.
The present archbishop is the Most Reverend Claoudi
Jose Gonial ves Ponce de Leao (b. 21 Feb., 1841),
transferred from the Diocese of Goyaz to the former
Diocese of Rio Grande on 13 May, ISSl. On 21
February, 1906, Mgr Joao Antonio Pimenta, titular
Bishop of Pentacomia, was appointed coadjutor with
right of succession.
See list of general works in bibliography of article on Brazil. Annuaire pontif. Cathol. (Paris, 1911).
MOIRA K. COYLE.
Porto Alegre, Diocese of (Portalegren.), com- prises the southern part of the State of Minas Geraes, and part of the State of Sao Paulo, Republic of Bra- zil. It was created a bishopric by Brief of 4 August, 1900; the see is located at the city of Porto Alegre, State of Minaa Geraes. The first bishop was Mgr G. Bathista Correa Nery, succeeded by Mgr .•Antonio Augusto de Assis. The diocese proper has 62 parishes with 120 secular priests and 6 regular priests and a total Catholic population of 800,000 souls.
For the education of young men in the ecclesiastical career there is in Porto Alegre a theological seminary, founded in August, 1902, by Mgr Correa Nery. There is also an excellent high school known as the Diocesan College of San Jose, and founded in 1899 by Mgr de Andrade. For the conversion of infidels there are the Diocesan Missionaries of the Heart of
