NAVIGATORS' ARCHIPELAGO, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF THE. - It was erected on 29 Aug. 1850, being detached from the vicariate of Central Oceania (v. Tonga Islands, Wallis and Futuna Islands), it is entrusted to the Society of Mary (Marists), and it comprises the Samoan and Tokelau groups and Sweins Island. The area of the territory is 3,359 sq. km.; the population is about 80,000 inhabitants, of whom 60,000 are Protestants, 16,476 Catholics and 141 catechumens, 200 pagans.

The 15 ecclesiastical districts are administered by 22 priests (5 Samoans), 9 members of the congregation of the Little Brothers of Mary, as well as by 54 missionary sisters of the Society of Mary. There is a minor seminary (48 students). The schools are well organized, both elementary (114 with 2,300 pupils) and secondary (16 with 750 pupils), as well as the one for catechists (56 pupils). From the local printing press comes the monthly periodical O le Anauva in Samoan (750 copies). Religious indifferentism, engendered in the uneducated masses by the multiplicity of Protestant confessions, and the laxity of morals stand in the way of a more rapid progress of the mission, all the more so since it began in a terrain already enfeoffed to non-Catholics.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: Jus Pont. de Prop. Fide, VI, coll. 102-103; MC, p. 19.

Giuseppe Monticone

@incollection{ec1_arcipelago_dei_navigatori_vica, author = {Monticone, Giuseppe}, title = {Arcipelago dei Navigatori, vicariato apostolico dell'}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {1842}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/arcipelago-dei-navigatori-vicariato-apostolico-dell} }

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Navigators' Archipelago, Apostolic Vicariate of the

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