BLUEFIELDS, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE of - It was erected on 2 Dec. 1913, when it was made autonomous from the diocese of León in Nicaragua; it is a suffragan of Managua and is directed by the Capuchins.
Area of the territory comprising the department of Zelaya, formerly B., the district of Cabo Gracias a Dios and the Atlantic islands belonging to Nicaragua, including the Corn Islands, formerly of the mission sui iuris of St. Andrew and Providence: 70,300 sq km. Total population (approximate count 1941): 41,654 (Miskitos, Black people of African and Antillean origin, mestizos, mulattoes), among whom 20,963 Catholics (mostly Miskitos), 15,960 Protestants, 38 Muslims, a few Jews, 3,860 pagans. The 18 Capuchin priests (regular province of Barcelona and regular province of Monte Calvario, Detroit, U.S.A., to which latter the vicariate has been entrusted since 1942) attend to 9 quasi-parishes (with 20 secondary stations), assisted by 8 brothers of the Christian Schools and 15 sisters of the Mother of the Divine Shepherd of Barcelona, 104 catechists, 29 teachers assigned to one elementary school (89 female pupils) and two middle schools (186 pupils), and to a hospital (95 beds). The Boletín Dominical (2,500 copies) is published there.
Before the arrival of the Capuchins, Catholics had remained spiritually abandoned for lack of diocesan clergy, while Protestant proselytism was gaining ground there, especially (from 1849) through the work of the Moravian Brethren. Among the Miskitos, methodical evangelization is being intensified, while elsewhere the mission has revived public and private morals, with an increase in legitimate marriages, periodically reaching even the most remote regions, despite the extreme risks of the journeys and the harshness of the tropical climate. The missionaries profitably direct the government primary school of B. and the local institution of university grade.
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Giuseppe Monticone