LAOHOKOW, DIOCESE of. — In China, in the civil province of Hupeh. Erected, under the name of Apostolic Vicariate of Northwestern Hupeh, on 11 September 1870, through the division of the Apostolic Vicariate of Hupeh (v. HANKOW; ICHANO); on 3 December 1924 it took its name from L., the residence of the Ordinary; on 25 May 1936 it ceded four civil subprefectures in order SIANGYANG, DIOCESI DI (v.), entrusted to the Chinese secular clergy; and on 11 April 1946, with the institution of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a suffragan diocese of Hankow. From the beginning it has been entrusted to the Order of Friars Minor, which sends there,
It has an area of 30,000 sq km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a population of approximately 2,500,000 inhabitants, there were 20,509 Catholics and 5,434 catechumens. In addition to the bishop, there were 23 Franciscan Fathers, 7 of them indigenous, and 10 Chinese secular priests. Twelve pupils were studying in the preparatory seminary, 35 in the minor seminary, and 4 in the regional seminary of Hankow. The auxiliary personnel comprised 3 foreign Franciscan lay brothers and 1 indigenous brother, 35 Chinese nuns and 13 Italian nuns, 36 catechists, 23 teachers, and 38 baptizers. The territory, divided into 14 primary and 157 secondary stations, had 24 churches and 40 oratories. Its institutions consisted of one hospital with 120 beds, 12 outpatient clinics, 3 orphanages with 236 girls, and 2 homes for the elderly with 38 residents. The 11 elementary schools had 591 children, the 3 vocational schools 50 pupils, and the 12 schools of prayer and elementary instruction 484 students.
The Christian origins of L. date back to the first half of the seventeenth century, through the work of the Jesuits, who also traversed this part of China in order to establish communities of the faithful there. After the Society was suppressed (1773), the Lazarists took their place. Their two martyrs, Blessed Francesco Regis Clet and Blessed Giovanni Gabriele Perboyre, were missionaries at Kucheng, in the diocese of L.; Clet spent 28 years at Chayunkow, where the minor seminary of L. is located and where there is a flourishing Christian community. In these last decades, too, the mission of L. suffered as a result of political and social upheavals; several priests were killed, while others were deported or imprisoned, or died from the violence inflicted upon them. Among these was the Apostolic Vicar, Msgr. Ermenegildo Ricci (1931).
Annuaire de l'Église catholique en Chine 1948, Shanghai 1948, passim; MC, 1950, pp. 361–62. Adamo Pucci