Macao, Diocese of

MACAO, Diocese of. - City and diocese in China. It forms a peninsula beside the south-east coast of China, in the middle of the delta formed by the West and Canton rivers. It also comprises a small archipelago, made up of the islands of Taipa, Coloane (the most important and the only ones completely occupied), Don Giovanni (or Macariva), Lapa and Vong-Kan (or Mountain Island).

Over an area of 28 sq km it has 374,737 inhabitants, of whom 23,000 are Catholics, distributed in 28 parishes, with 46 diocesan priests and 30 regulars, one seminary, 5 male and 5 female religious communities and 20 educational institutions (1949).

The history of Catholicism in M. is intimately connected with that of China (v.). After the Portuguese dominion in China had been established through the efforts of Lusitanian navigators and merchants, M. was integrated by the Jesuit missionaries into the historic Portuguese Patronage of the Order, first under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Funchal (Madeira Islands, west of Portugal) and then of Goa (India).

With the bull Super specula militantis Ecclesiae of 1576, the pontiff Gregory XIII, at the request of the king of Portugal Don Sebastian and in order to provide for the needs arising from the progress of Christianity in the Far East, erected the new diocese of M., detaching it from that of which it had until then been a suffragan. It then comprised the whole of China, Japan, the Moluccas and other neighbouring lands and islands.

In 1588 Japan was constituted as a separate bishopric (Funaia) and in 1690 China had dioceses of its own, Peking and Nanking. In 1903, by virtue of a decree of the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide, the bishop of M. and the vicar apostolic of Canton exchanged, respectively, their jurisdiction over the island of Hai-Nam and the district of Shiu-Hing. Recently, in 1940, with the missionary agreement between the Holy See and the Portuguese government, concluded following the signing of the Concordat, Timor too was detached and erected as a separate diocese of Dili (the capital).

Carmo da Silva