LINTSING [LINQING], APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. - In the province of Shantung (northeastern China). It was erected on 5 April 1931 with 13 civil subprefectures detached from the mission of Tsinan (v.) and was entrusted to the Chinese secular clergy. As an apostolic prefecture it depends directly on the Holy See.
As of 30 June 1947, out of approximately 2,000,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 20,110, served by 27 indigenous secular priests, 4 foreign Franciscans, 20 religious, 20 nuns.
It seems that Bl. Odoric of Pordenone preached, at the beginning of the 14th century, in the territory of L.; certainly Fr. Matteo Ricci passed through there in 1598 and in 1600. In 1685 a Chinese official of L. invited, by letter, the Jesuit Fr. Vallat to go to L. to baptize 600 catechumens. The same missionary left an account of the fruits obtained at Tongchang. From 1701 until the persecution of Kienglong (1785) there were Italian Franciscan friars there, among whom emerged Bernardino Della Chiesa, later bishop of Peking, and Carlo Orazi da Castorano. From 1785, when the Franciscan personnel failed, the Christians were sometimes visited by missionaries from neighboring regions and by secular priests, former pupils of the Chinese College of Naples (founded by the Ven. Matteo Ripa). Frequent persecutions, however, reduced the faithful to 1,800 in 1838. After the creation of the apostolic vicariate of Shantung (1839), in the same year the Franciscans returned to the mission. In 1841 the apostolic vicar Msgr. Moccagatta fixed his residence at Shi-eul-li-chwang near Wucheng (in the territory of the present apostolic prefecture), later transferred, for greater safety, within the walls of Tsinanfu in 1863.
Bibliography4 works
Adamo Pucci