CONGREGATION OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY (MISSIONARIES OF SCHEUT)
Founded in 1862 by Fr. Teofilo Verbist at Scheut, a suburb of Brussels, with the approval and support of Cardinal Sterckx of Mechelen and the Belgian episcopate. The constitutions, approved by the Holy See in 1900, establish an exclusively missionary purpose, as the Congregation was instituted for the evangelization of China. The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide entrusted to it the steppes of Mongolia, the entire territory between Siberia and the Great Wall. The founder himself departed with the first expedition in 1865 and died at Lao-Hou-Kecu (Mongolia), on 22 February 1868.
The mission in Mongolia comprises (1949) five thriving dioceses: Jehol, Suiyuan, Siwantze, Ningxia, and Tiang. Works, schools, and seminaries are progressing; each vicariate has 30-40 indigenous priests, so much so that two missions have already been ceded to the indigenous clergy: the Apostolic Vicariate of Tsining and the Apostolic Prefecture of Chih-feng. The regional seminary of Tatangfu for indigenous clergy, established in 1922 and the first of its kind in China, has provided more than 200 priests to those vicariates in Mongolia over the past 20 years. In 1888, the Congregation was called to evangelize the independent State of the Congo, to which the Apostolic Vicariate was entrusted. Today, it is divided into about thirty thriving ecclesiastical circumscriptions. The Missionaries of Scheut have four Apostolic Vicariates there: Léopoldville, Kasaï, Lisala, and Boma. Since 1908, they have been evangelizing the interior regions of the island of Luzon in the Philippines (Apostolic Prefecture of Bagulo or of the Mountainous Region), and since 1936, the Apostolic Prefecture of Makassar on the island of Cebu (Dutch East Indies). The Congregation currently numbers about 1,400 religious.