KAGOSHIMA, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE. — On the southern coast of the Island of Kyūshū (Japan), erected on 18 March 1927 from territory detached from the diocese of Nagasaki. With an area of 7,883 sq. km and a population of 1,800,000 inhabitants, it comprises 577 Catholics; 360 catechumens; 3 national priests; 7 native nuns; 5 catechists; 15 teachers; 5 stations; one church and 2 chapels; a secondary school; an orphanage; a kindergarten.
This mission, since 1936, has been entrusted to the Japanese secular clergy and is currently governed by an apostolic administrator. On 13 January 1947 the Ryūkyū Islands, having in fact become a possession of the United States of America, were detached from the apostolic prefecture of K. and entrusted to the apostolic vicar of Guam, and subsequently placed under the care of an apostolic administrator.
K. is the principal city and the residence of the Ordinary. It was the first Japanese city to enter into contact with Christianity, since St. Francis Xavier landed there on 15 August 1549, accompanied by two Spanish Jesuits, Fr. Cosma da Torres and Brother Giovanni Fernandez, and by the Japanese samurai Paolo di Santa Fede, who had been baptized by the Apostle at Goa. But the first nucleus of a Christian community subsequently disappeared without leaving any trace. In 1844 Mgr. Forcade, of the Paris Foreign Missions, apostolic vicar of Japan, succeeded with difficulty in reaching Naha, the capital of the province of Okinawa in the Ryūkyū Islands, followed gradually by other missionaries, but with negligible success in conversions. In 1890 Fr. Ferrier, after founding various mission stations, including K., was able to set foot on the Island of Oshima (Ryūkyū), initiating there a consoling movement of conversions. Finally, in 1906, the Franciscans arrived and directed the mission until its transfer to the local clergy.