Kangting [Kangding], Diocese of

KANGTING [KANGDING], Diocese of. - In central-western China. It comprises independent Tibet or Sitsang, the Tibetan Marches or Sikang, and the district of Weisiting in the province of Yunnan. It was erected as an apostolic vicariate, under the name of Lhasa (later also called Tibet), with territory detached from the apostolic vicariate of Tibet-Hindustan, on 27 March 1846. It is entrusted to the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris. On 3 Dec. 1924 it took the name of apostolic vicariate of Tatsienlu; on 11 Apr. 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, the apostolic vicariate was elevated to a diocese, suffragan of Chungking, under the name of K., as the city of Tatsienlu had already been called for some time.

The Tibetan territory measures 1,200,000 sq. km., the properly Chinese territory 160,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1949 the total population was estimated at 4,000,000 inhabitants (Tibetans 3,500,000, Chinese 500,000); Catholics numbered 5,475 and catechumens 223. Besides the bishop, the missionaries of Paris numbered 13, one of them Italian, and there were 6 Chinese secular priests; at Weisi there were also 7 Canons Regular of St. Augustine (Great St. Bernard), and at Mosimien the Friars Minor had a leper asylum directed by 4 fathers and 3 lay brothers, all Italians. The minor seminary had 10 students, 1 Latinist student, and 2 theologians were studying for K. at Kunming. The auxiliary personnel numbered 54 sisters, of whom 37 were Chinese and Tibetan; 21 catechists, 39 teachers, 22 baptizers. The territory, divided into 2 forane vicariates, had 16 primary stations with a missionary's residence and 13 secondary ones, 5 churches and 21 chapels. Among the works were 2 hospitals with 60 beds; 5 orphanages with 54 inmates, 2 homes for the aged with 29 residents; 1 leper asylum with 253 patients; 9 medical dispensaries. The 10 elementary schools had 301 children and the 2 normal schools 8 pupils, while the 16 schools of prayer and first elements had 358 listeners.

In the territory of K. the penetration of Christianity is particularly difficult, especially in the Tibetan region. Toward the middle of the last century, Fr. Renou reached Kiangkha, in the territory of Lhasa, and around 1880 Fr. Desgodins founded a small Christian community at Pedong, but, given the severity of the Chinese prohibitions, both were later forced to withdraw, which also befell the apostolic vicar Thomine-Desmasures (1857-62). In 1946 even the small Christian community of Yerkalo, on the border between Tibet, Sikang and Yunnan, on properly Chinese territory and founded by Frs. Desgodins and Biet in 1865, with the faithful expelled from Tibet, after numerous persecutions in the years 1873, 1877, 1887, 1905, was destroyed through the work of the lamas, mortal enemies of the Christian religion, and in 1949 Fr. Tournay, of the Canons Regular, who had remained to assist the surviving faithful, was massacred.

Adamo Pucci