BAHAMA (BAHAMAS, LUCAIE). – A coral archipelago extending north of Cuba, from Florida to Haiti, consisting of about thirty larger islands (Andros, Great Abaco, Gran B., etc.), 660 islets, and 2,400 reefs (cayos), which together cover an area of 11,405 sq. km. (less than half that of Sardinia). It has a temperate, uniform, and healthy climate, which has made it a climatic resort, sought above all by tourists from the U.S. and Canada. Its principal resources are sponge fishing and gardening (tomatoes). The B. form a British Crown colony.
BIBL.: R. M. Fiedl,
Geology of the B., in
Bull. of Geol. Society of America, 42 (Washington 1931), pp. 759–84; H. Maclachlan Bell,
B.: isles of June, Londra 1934. Giuseppe Caraci
THE APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF B. - The Lucaie or B. Islands, initially (1808) entrusted to the Archbishop of Baltimore as apostolic delegate, then included in the apostolic vicariate of Santissima Trinità, created in 1818 (v.
PORTO DI SPAGNA, archdiocese of), and subsequently incorporated (1837)
Giamaica (v.), later attached to the diocese of Charleston, South Carolina (1858), were finally, by virtue of the «
Sapienti consilio » (1908), officially entrusted to the Archbishop of Nuova York, under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation; by decree of 21 March 1929, this Congregation erected the B. into an apostolic prefecture subject to Propaganda Fide, which subsequently decreed its elevation to a vicariate (15 January 1940). The Benedictines of the abbey of St. John, Collegeville, Minn., sent by the Archbishop of Nuova York to administer the station of Nassau (founded in 1885), have been working there since February 1891. Since 1933 the jurisdiction has depended on the apostolic delegation of the United States of America.
Area of the territory (province of B. Islands): 11,405 sq. km.; total population 74,448 inhabitants, mostly Negroes and people of mixed African descent, English-speaking. Catholics 10,226 and 360 catechumens; 250 Byzantine-rite dissidents; 62,437 Protestants of various denominations; 175 Jews and 1,000 pagans. Other data: 23 priests and two Benedictine brothers, 29 nuns, and 49 catechists; 20 elementary schools with 2,091 pupils and 3 secondary schools with 166 students; a clinic and an orphanage.
The mission is developing only slowly, both because of the shortage of personnel, considering the great distances between the seven residential stations, and because of the considerable activity of non-Catholics.
BIBL.: Archive of Prop. Fide, Prospectus Status Missions, 30 June 1942 and 3 July 1948, position no. prot. 3657/48; Ius Pontif. de Prop. Fide, V, 172; AAS, 33 (1941), pp. 67-68; Guida delle Missioni Cattoliche, pp. 291-92; MC, pp. 159-60. Giuseppe Monticone
