Archdiocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra

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Archdiocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra (Latin: Archidioecesis Sanctae Crucis de Sierra) is a Roman Catholic archdiocese in Bolivia. It covers about 50,000 square kilometers in the Santa Cruz de la Sierra region and serves about 1.8 million Catholics, roughly 78.8% of the 2.3 million people in its area (as of 2010). It has 72 parishes. It was established as the Diocese of Santa Cruz de la Sierra on July 5, 1605, and was elevated to a metropolitan archdiocese on July 30, 1975, with the suffragan see of San Ignacio de Velasco. The archdiocesan cathedral is the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Lawrence in Santa Cruz. The current archbishop is René Leigue Cesari; there is an auxiliary bishop, Stanislaw Dowlaszewicz Billman, and emeritus bishops Sergio Alfredo Gualberti Calandrina and Braulio Saez Garcia.