Port Louis, Diocese of

PORT LOUIS, Diocese of. - The island of Mauritius and the other small islands annexed to it (St. Brandon, Rodriguez, Agalega, Farquhar, the Chagos archipelago, Diego Garcia, Six Iles, Peros Banhos, Salomon), which form the diocese of P. L., belong to the Mascarene archipelago in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar.

Mauritius, already known to the Arabs, was discovered in 1507 by the Portuguese Diego-Fernandez Pereira, who called it Isola del cigno, and was visited later by Pedro Mascarenhas. Annexed to Holland in 1598 by Admiral van Warwick, who gave it the name of Mauritius in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau, and subsequently abandoned, it was occupied in 1715 by the French, who called it Ile de France. The Lazarists had charge of it from 1722 to 1819, with faculties delegated by the Archbishop of Paris, to whom the mission had been entrusted by the Holy See. In 1810 it passed under the British crown. According to the act of capitulation the inhabitants retained their religion, customs, laws and usages, and the Catholic religion remained the religion of the State, in accordance with the Concordat of 1801. The island then took back the name of Mauritius. In 1819 Propaganda made P. L. the center of an immense apostolic vicariate, entrusted to the Benedictines, which embraced Mauritius, St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, Madagascar, the Seychelles islands and all of Australia. Once new missions had been created, the territory, successively reduced, was erected as a diocese in 1847, which was then entrusted in 1916 to the Congregation of the Holy Spirit. The diocese of P. L. is immediately subject and currently has an area of 2,080 sq km.; a population of about 473,000 inhabitants, of whom 160,000 are Catholics with 380 catechumens, 70,000 Muslims, 220,000 Hindus, 10,000 Chinese, among the latter of whom especially an effort is being made to foster with fruit a movement of conversions; 27 secular priests, 28 of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, 6 Jesuits; 2 indigenous lay brothers and 15 foreign, 303 sisters, of whom 233 are indigenous and 70 foreign, with 12 novices; 17 major seminarians, of whom 9 study in Paris and 8 in Rome, 4 minor seminarians; 259 catechists; 37 parishes; an imposing complex of charitable works; 59 elementary schools, 8 secondary; 4 periodicals with a circulation of 8,800 copies.

Carlo Corvo