KONGMOON (KIANGMEN), DIOCESE of.—On the lower coast of the civil province of Kwangtung, in southern China. Established as an apostolic prefecture on 31 January 1924, by division of the apostolic vicariate of Canton, and entrusted to the Society for the Foreign Missions of the United States (Maryknoll), whose fathers had been present in the area since the end of 1918, it was elevated to an apostolic vicariate on 3 February 1927 and, on 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, to a suffragan diocese of Canton.
It covers an area of approximately 40,000 sq. km. On 30 June 1950, out of a population of approximately 4,000,000 inhabitants, there were 8,292 Catholics and 536 catechumens. In addition to the bishop, there were 28 Maryknoll fathers and 11 Chinese secular priests. Nine students were studying in the preparatory seminary, 14 in the minor seminary, and 4 in the regional seminary, located in Hong Kong. The auxiliary personnel consisted of 2 American Maryknoll brothers, 38 nuns, 10 of them American Maryknolls and the rest Chinese; 67 catechists, 52 teachers, 2 physicians, and 8 nurses. There were 23 stations with a missionary in residence and 195 without a permanent residence; 3 churches and 27 oratories. The institutions included 1 hospital with 50 beds, 20 medical dispensaries, 6 orphanages housing 185 children, 1 home for the elderly with 10 residents, a leprosarium with 202 patients, 1 home for the blind housing 26 persons, and 6 reading rooms for students. The schools were: 9 elementary schools with 707 children, 1 middle school with 219 pupils, and 9 schools of prayer and elementary instruction with 127 attendees.
The first Christian communities in the territory of K. were founded during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century by Fr. Flereau, of the Paris Foreign Missions; the American missionaries suffered persecution, and two of them were killed during the Japanese occupation from 1940 to 1945; today (1950), three Chinese priests are in prison under false accusations.