Nagoya, Apostolic Prefecture of

NAGOYA, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. - In the region of the island of Hondo (Japan). It consists of five civil prefectures: Aichi, Gifu, Ishikawa, Fukui, Toyama. It was erected on 18 Feb. 1922, dismembering its territory partly from the archdiocese of Tokyo and partly from the apostolic prefecture of Niigata. It extends over 31,018 sq. km. with about 8,560,000 inhabitants, for the most part Buddhists and Shintoists. Catholics number 2,512 with 989 catechumens, Protestants 16,000.

The first to evangelize this territory were the Jesuits, among whom particularly worthy of mention is Fr. Baldassare de Torres, who carried out his apostolate notably at Kaga and at Noto and was burned alive at Nagasaki in 1633. The missionary revival, after two centuries of prohibition of the Catholic religion, was the work of the Fathers of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (1870). In 1907 the missionaries of the Society of the Divine Word arrived there, to whom the mission remained entrusted until its passage under the jurisdiction of a Japanese Ordinary (14 Jan. 1941). The Verbites, who remained as auxiliary personnel, currently number 38. To them some Australian missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus have recently been added. Native priests number 6; brothers: 3 native and 4 foreign; nuns 64, of whom 38 Japanese and 26 foreign; 15 seminarians; 7 catechists; 35 teachers; 13 sacred buildings; 2 hospitals; 3 orphanages; 2 middle schools; one high school; one school for catechists; 7 kindergartens; one district; 14 quasi-parishes; 13 primary and 6 secondary stations; there is a Catholic university and a university college.

Edoardo Pecorsio