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Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba

Catholic archdiocese in Cuba

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ1365507 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba (Latin: Archidioecesis Sancti Iacobi in Cuba) (erected 1518 as the Diocese of Baracoa) is a Latin Catholic ecclesiastical jurisdiction or archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Cuba. It is a metropolitan see with four suffragan dioceses in its ecclesiastical province: Guantánamo-Baracoa, Holguín and Santísimo Salvador de Bayamo y Manzanillo.

Prior to elevation as a archdiocese, the Diocese of Santiago de Cuba was a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Seville in Spain until 12 February 1546 when it became a suffragan of the Diocese of Santo Domingo (now Archdiocese of Santo Domingo) in the Dominican Republic. In 1803, the see was elevated to an archdiocese. The archdiocese is the home of the Basílica Santuario Nacional de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre.

Bishops

Diocese of Baracoa

Erected: 1518

Juan de Witte Hoos, OP (1517–1525) Resigned

Diocese of Santiago de Cuba

Name Changed: 28 April 1522

Latin Name: Sancti Iacobi in Cuba

Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba

Elevated: 24 November 1803

Mariano Rodríguez de Olmedo y Valle (1824–1831) died

Cirilo de Alameda y Brea, OFM (1831–1849) died

St. Antonio María Claret y Clará, CMF (1850–1859)

Manuel María Negueruela Mendi (1859–1861) died

Primo Calvo y López (1861–1868) died

José María Martín de Herrera y de la Iglesia (1875–1889) appointed, Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela

José María Cos y Macho (1889–1892) appointed, Archbishop (Personal Title) of Madrid

Francisco Sáenz de Urturi y Crespo, OFM (1894–1899) resigned

Francisco de Paula Barnada y Aguilar (1899–1913) died

Felix Ambrosio Guerra, SDB (1915–1925) Resigned

Valentín Zubizarreta y Unamunsaga, OCD (1925–1948) died

Enrique Pérez Serantes (1948–1968) died

Pedro Claro Meurice Estiu (1970–2007) retired

Dionisio García Ibáñez (Dionisio Guillermo García Ibáñez) (2007–present)

Auxiliary bishops

Dionisio Resino (Rezino) y Ormachea, OSB (1705–1711)

José Francisco Martínez de Tejada y Díez de Velasco, OFM (1732–1745), appointed Bishop of Yucatán (Mérida), México

Pedro Ponce y Carrasco (1746–1762), appointed Bishop of Quito, Ecuador

Santiago José Hechavarría y Elguesúa (1768–1769), appointed Bishop here

Francisco Antonio Pablo Sieni Flannings, OFMCap (1784–1787), appointed Auxiliary Bishop of San Cristobal de la Habana

Pedro Claro Meurice Estiu (1967–1970), appointed Archbishop here

Héctor Luis Lucas Peña Gómez (1970–1979), appointed Bishop of Holguín

Other priests of this diocese who became bishops

Luis Ignatius Peñalver y Cárdenas, appointed Bishop of Louisiana and the Two Floridas (Saint Louis of New Orleans), USA in 1794

Carlos Riu Anglés, appointed Bishop of Camagüey in 1948

Francisco Ricardo Oves Fernández, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Cienfuegos in 1969

Carlos Jesús Patricio Baladrón Valdés, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of San Cristobal de la Habana in 1991

Silvano Herminio Pedroso Montalvo, appointed Bishop of Guantánamo-Baracoa in 2018

Territorial losses

The see also gained territory in 1527 with the suppression of the Diocese of Concepción de la Vega.

External links and references

"Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba". Catholic-Hierarchy. Retrieved 2007-02-12.

Editorial summary

“Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba” enters the record as catholic archdiocese in Cuba. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Archdiocese, Santiago and Cuba can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1518, 1546, 1803, 1517—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Archdiocese, Santiago and Cuba.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Archdiocese, Santiago and Cuba provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1365507. VIAF identifies the subject as 152642685. The Library of Congress control number is n2003054025. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1518, 1546, 1803 and 1517.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.