BENI IN THE BELGIAN CONGO, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE. — This vicariate was erected on 9 February 1938, but the Assumptionists who direct it had already been working in that territory since 1920, having been summoned there by Mgr. Grison, apostolic vicar of Stanley Falls.
The indigenous people, aided also by the area’s good communications, flocked en masse to the mission’s chapel-schools, including the chiefs and even some sultans. After five years, in 1934, the territory was officially detached from the mother mission of Stanley Falls and constituted as a mission sui iuris, which, after another four years, was elevated to the rank of apostolic vicariate without passing through the intermediate stage of a prefecture. The most prosperous region is the southernmost one, whereas around B. itself and to the north and northwest progress is slower, both because of the Arabization that has already taken place in some centers (Mambasa), and because of the proliferation of secret societies among the forest Negroes, especially that of the leopard men, who exact terrible vengeance on behalf of their tribe.
According to the 1948 statistics, it has an area of 40,000 sq. km., with a population of approximately 375,000 inhabitants, including 91,606 indigenous Catholics, 270 foreigners, 49,901 catechumens, 150 Eastern dissidents, 8,000 Protestants, 1,250 Muslims, and 225,000 pagans. There are 10 primary and 30 secondary stations, with 40 missionaries, one of them indigenous, 8 brothers, and 16 sisters, as well as a new indigenous congregation. The elementary schools number 344, with 16,167 pupils; there are 2 hospitals with 230 beds and 3 leprosariums with 413 patients.
Giovanni B. Tragella