HONG KONG. - British colony consisting of some islands (the two largest, Hong Kong and Lantau) and a stretch of the opposite Chinese coast of Kwang-tung, facing Macao: 1,013 sq km with 1.8 million inhabitants (all Chinese, except for 7,000 British), of whom 450,000 are concentrated in the capital Victoria (on the first island), a very busy port for trade with southern China.
Giuseppe Caraci
DIOCESE OF HONG KONG
It comprises the British colony of the same name off the coast of southern China and the three districts of Poon, Waichow and Hoifung in the civil province of Kwang-tung. Erected as an apostolic prefecture on 22 April 1841, immediately after the founding of the British colony, it comprised only the territory of the latter, which until then had formed part of the diocese of Macao, and it was administered by the pro tempore procurators of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, the last of whom, the Veronese Father Luigi Ambrosi, in 1858 called to his aid the fathers of the Seminary for Foreign Missions of Milan, who in 1867, on the death of Ambrosi, also took over the direction of the prefecture, which in 1874 was elevated to an apostolic vicariate with the annexation of the three above-mentioned mainland districts, which until then had belonged to the apostolic prefecture of Canton. On 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, H. K. was elevated to a diocese, a suffragan of Canton.
It has an area of 16,000 sq km. As of 30 June 1949 the total population was about 4,000,000 inhabitants, of whom Catholics numbered 37,146, and catechumens 1,726. Besides the bishop, 36 priests and 2 lay brothers of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan, there were 21 Chinese secular priests. The minor seminarians were 30 and the major seminarians 3 in the regional Seminary for Kwangtung and Kwangsi, which is based at Aberdeen on the island of H. K. and is entrusted to the Irish Jesuits. The catechists were 44, the teachers 506, the doctors 9 and the nurses 45. The territory was divided into 4 districts with 12 parishes, 17 primary and 129 secondary stations, 15 churches and 180 chapels. Among the works were 6 hospitals with 374 beds, 6 medical outpatient clinics which in the year 1948-1949 had given 60,702 consultations; 4 orphanages with 81 boys and 325 girls; 1 hospice for the elderly with 286 residents. The schools, between elementary and secondary, were 100 with 15,140 pupils, besides 4 prayer schools with 723 attendees and 7 kindergartens with 1,221 children. There were also 2 printing presses for the printing of books, weeklies and monthly magazines published in several thousand copies. In these many welfare and educational works the bishop of H. K. is also assisted by 20 priests and 15 lay Salesian co-workers, by 16 Brothers of the Christian Schools and by 383 sisters belonging to ten different institutes. Moreover the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris and that of Maryknoll have in H. K. their own procurature in which, at the aforementioned date, there were respectively 12 and 4 priests; the Dominicans have there a procurature and a house of studies with 28 fathers and the Friars Minor have transferred there the Biblical Study which they had in Beijing, with 9 fathers. The island of H. K. acquired importance only after the English occupation (1840) and the first priests landed there almost immediately to assist the many soldiers, mostly Catholic Irish, who, because of the inclemency of the climate, were dying without a priest to administer the Sacraments to them. The missionaries of the Seminary of Milan, helped by the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres and by the Canossian Sisters of Verona, opened schools, provided assistance to the soldiers, hastened to the bedside of the sick in the vast hospitals located in the area, and in 1859 extended their work to the Chinese of the mainland, where, on the coasts of the present district of Poon, Fathers Volonteri and Burghignoli established a Christian community of 350 souls, distributed in 12 small centers; later the preaching was carried to the other two districts of Waichow and Hoifung. Now the mainland part, which already in the five-year period 1927-33 had suffered, especially in the district of Hoifung, plundering of Christian communities, capture of missionaries and sisters, and the massacre of 200 Christians at the hands of the Bolsheviks, is again under communist domination; the territory under English government, on the other hand, is overpopulated because of the great number of refugees and suffered greatly in the Second World War, during which it was occupied by the Japanese.
Bibliography4 works
Adamo Pucci