Laohokow [Laohekou], Diocese of

LAOHOKOW [LAOHEKOU], Diocese of. - In China, in the civil province of Hupeh. Erected, under the name of apostolic vicariate of northwestern Hupeh, on Sept. 11, 1870, by division of the apostolic vicariate of Hupeh (v. HANKOW; ICHANO); on Dec. 3, 1924 it took its name from L., the residence of the Ordinary; on May 25, 1936 it ceded 4 civil subprefectures to give life to the mission of Siangyang (v.), entrusted to the Chinese secular clergy; and on Apr. 11, 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a diocese suffragan of Hankow. It has been entrusted, from the very beginning, to the Order of Friars Minor, which sends there, for the apostolic work, the fathers of the Tuscan province of the Holy Stigmata.

It has an area of 30,000 sq km. As of June 30, 1947, out of a population of about 2,500,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 20,509 and catechumens 5,434. Besides the bishop, there were 23 Franciscan Fathers, of whom 7 were native, and 10 Chinese secular priests. In the preparatory seminary 12 students were studying, 35 in the minor seminary and 4 in the regional seminary of Hankow. The auxiliary personnel numbered 3 foreign Franciscan lay brothers and 1 native, 35 Chinese sisters and 13 Italian, 36 catechists, 23 teachers, 38 baptizers. The territory, divided into 14 primary and 157 secondary stations, had 24 churches and 40 oratories. The works consisted of a hospital with 120 beds, 12 dispensaries, 3 orphanages with 236 girls, 2 homes for the aged with 38 residents. The 11 elementary schools gathered 591 children, the 3 vocational schools 50 students, the 12 schools of prayer and first elements 484 listeners.

The Christian origins of L. go back to the first half of the 17th century through the work of the Jesuits, who also traveled through this part of China to create nuclei of the faithful there. After the suppression of the Society (1773), the Lazarists took over, whose two martyrs, the Bl. Francis Regis Clet and the Bl. John Gabriel Perboyre, were missionaries at Kucheng, in the diocese of L., and Clet spent 28 years at Chayunkow, where the minor seminary of L. is located and where there is a flourishing Christian community. Even in recent decades the mission of L. suffered because of political and social upheavals; several priests were killed, others deported or imprisoned or died from the violence they suffered; among these the apostolic vicar Msgr. Ermenegildo Ricci (1931).

Adamo Pucci