MITU, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. - In Colombia, erected on 9 June 1949 by the dismemberment of the apostolic vicariate of Piani di S. Martino (today Villavicencio). It comprises the entire comissaria of Vaupès, situated in the eastern regions. It is entrusted to the Seminary for Foreign Missions of Yarumal, which has sent there 8 priests with some lay coadjutors.
The Mission has an area of 150,000 sq km, with a population of 8,000 inhabitants, composed of whites and Indians. The former attend to the cultivation of cacao and live in the small town of M., capital of the territory, S. José del Guaviare and Calamar; they lead a highly licentious life and look upon the missionaries with disfavor because they reproach them for their bad customs and defend the rights of the Indians. The latter are scattered along the banks of the rivers; in every large hut, called a maloca, several families live.
The missionaries have attempted to gather them into small centers, but so far they have succeeded in forming only four villages with schools and churches on the banks of the Papuri stream, named Acaricuara, Montfort, Piracuara and Teresita. The number of Catholics is difficult to assess. From approximate calculations it may be presumed that they amount to 4,500. The missionary work is made hard by the vast extent of the territory and by the limited means of communication, for the most part mule tracks, impassable during the rainy seasons. At present colleges and vocational schools are being organized to provide for the education of the young. The sisters Hermanas de María Immaculada y de S. Catalina de Sena, a missionary Congregation, with its mother house in Medellín (Colombia), attend to the care of the hospitals and the asylums.
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Antonio Mazza