MAKASSAR, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF. - In the southern part of the island of Celebes (Indonesia), erected as an apostolic prefecture on 13 April 1937 by detachment from the apostolic vicariate of Celebes (today's apostolic vicariate of Manado), raised on 13 May 1948 to apostolic vicariate of M.
In the 16th century Fr. Vincenzo Viega was the first to land at M., coming from Goa, and he dwelt there from 1545 to 1548. Much later, and precisely in 1615, the Jesuits arrived there. They were followed by the Franciscans in 1620 and the Dominicans in 1649. But their evangelical work was hindered, indeed halted, by the Dutch Protestants, who put the Catholic missionaries in a position where they had to abandon the field. 1853 marked the resumption of evangelization, when the native soldiers, who on the island of Java had embraced the Catholic religion, once they had returned to Celebes, obtained, with the government's permission, a visit from a priest of the Society of Jesus. Subsequently the Jesuits, not without many difficulties, gathered abundant fruits of conversions and in 1885 established their residence in Manado and in 1893 in M. Later the missionaries of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scheut) took over, to whom the mission of M. is currently entrusted. The city of M., a port on the island of Celebes, has become the capital of the new State of eastern Indonesia, formed by Celebes, Bali, Lombok and the islands lying to the east, the Moluccas and the islands lying to the south, with a population of 10,000,000 inhabitants, belonging to 50 different races, with some forty different languages.
It now has an area of 98,939 sq km with 3,600,000 inhabitants, of whom 7,817 are Catholics, served by 28 priests of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with 39 stations, assisted by one male religious community and 4 female ones. It has 35 schools and 8 works of charity and welfare.