CAQUETÀ, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE. — In Colombia. The territory of C. was first evangelized, with the Spanish conquest, by the Franciscans, who came from Quito and Papayán. They remained there until the beginning of the nineteenth century, making numerous conversions and watering the soil of the mission itself with their blood. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, that is, after Colombia’s war of independence had ended, some Jesuit priests came to C., but departed after two years. From 1880 the mission was entrusted to the archdiocese of Papayán and then to the diocese of Pasto, from which it was separated in 1902 in order to be erected as an apostolic prefecture and assigned to the Capuchin priests of Catalonia, who had entered the territory four years earlier. In 1930 it was erected as an apostolic vicariate.
The mission’s total area is 257,240 sq. km.; it has approximately 64,300 inhabitants, of whom 63,000 are Catholics and the remainder pagans. Twenty-four Capuchin religious and one secular priest work there, along with two communities of Marist Brothers, numbering 10, and four communities of Franciscan Tertiary Sisters, numbering 80; both the former and the latter direct schools, orphanages, and hospitals. The territory is divided into 11 parishes and one parochial vicariate. The mission borders the dioceses of Garzón, Ibarra, Pasto, and Papayán, the apostolic vicariate of Piani di San Martino, and the apostolic prefecture of San Leone delle Amazzoni.
Misiones, 14 (1938), pp. 329-36; MC, p. 68; Archivio di Propaganda Fide, Prospectus status missionum 1948, pos. prot. n. 5272/48; ibid.*, pos. prot. n. 1250/30. Antonio Mazza