APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF TOUNGOO [TAUNGOO]. - Located in south-eastern Burma west of the Salween River, it comprises the Karen State, the southern federated Shan States west of the Salween, the part of the civil district of Yamethin south of the 20th parallel, and the part of the district of T. north of the 18th, 45th degree of north latitude.
The population consists of Burmese, of Buddhist religion, and of Karens, peaceful farmers living in the mountains, who are divided into various tribes, among which the best known are that of the Red Karens and that of the Ghebbù east of the Sittang: there are also minorities of immigrant Indians, and Chinese are not lacking either. The Karens are animists and were the first to whom the missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan, to whom the vicariate is entrusted, turned when they arrived at T. in 1868. The apostolic vicariate of southern Burma, detached from the apostolic vicariate of Ava and Pegu and erected on 27 Nov. 1866 and definitively on 19 July 1870, changed its name to that of T. on 27 Apr. 1927, when the prefecture, now vicariate, of Keng-Tung was dismembered from it. The apostolate continues to be carried out especially among the Karens, since the Burmese Buddhists are rather resistant to Christianity.
It measures 79,000 sq km in area and has a population of about 1,273,000 inhabitants, of whom 37,000 are Catholics with more than 3000 catechumens, 23 thousand Protestants, 8 thousand Muslims, 12 thousand Hindus, 300 thousand animists and 890,000 Buddhists. The priests number 42 (of whom 18 are native), the brothers 4, the sisters 92, half foreign and half native, the catechists 319, the female catechists 11. Ecclesiastically the mission is divided into 3 primary stations and 332 secondary ones with about twenty churches and 315 chapels. There is the minor seminary. The elementary schools number 54, the middle and teacher-training schools 20, 34 orphanages, 1 leprosarium, 6 hospitals. There are also 17 dispensaries. A printing press prints religious and school books in the various Karen languages and a Catholic periodical.