HARAR, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF. — It is situated in eastern Ethiopia on the borders of French, British, and Italian Somaliland. Erected on 4 May 1846 under the name of Vicariatus apostolicus Africae ad populos Galla, it had a great apostle who worked there from that year until 1880, namely MASSAIA.
On 15 January 1894 the boundaries of the Vicariate of the Galla were fixed with those of the Vicariate of Khartoum (then the Vicariate of Central Africa); on 28 January 1913 the Apostolic Prefecture of Kaffa was detached from it; on 8 September 1913 its boundaries with the latter were modified, as also on 20 February 1923 and 10 March 1926. On 13 February 1925 the part of Abyssinian Somalia was ceded to the Apostolic Prefecture of Djibouti. On 25 March 1937, in the reorganization of all the missions in Ethiopia, it received its present name of H. It then covered an area of 202,000 sq. km. and, at the time of its erection, had a population of about 2,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,000,000 were Moslems, 300,000 were schismatic Copts, and 200,000 pagans. Under the administration of the Capuchins it made great progress. But the war, which forced the Italian missionaries to leave, halted the development of the vicariate, whose new and grandiose buildings of the episcopal residence and the seminary were also confiscated. If all was not lost, this was due to the providential existence of a certain number of good native priests of the Latin rite. In 1948 the vicariate counted 1,200,000 infidels (pagans and Moslems), 300,000 schismatic Copts, 7,583 Latin-rite Catholics with 51 catechumens, 13 native priests, one foreign missionary priest and one foreign lay brother, four foreign and 16 native sisters, 12 main stations, 56 adult and 323 infant baptisms administered during the year, 12 dispensaries with 55,000 sick assisted, several orphanages with numerous inmates, 15 primary schools with 834 pupils of both sexes, 12 churches, 12 chapels. There is also Catholic Action (17 centres with 308 members).