NAPO, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF. - Erected by the Holy See in 1867, in the territory of the ancient mission of the Marañón (eastern part of the Republic of Ecuador) and entrusted in 1671 to the Jesuits who had entered that region as early as 1638, but had had to leave it in 1768, being succeeded first by the secular clergy, then by the Dominicans.
The extent of the mission of N., which included the whole eastern part of Ecuador, diminished in 1886, when the apostolic prefecture of Macas and Canelos was detached from it, and then in 1893 when the apostolic vicariates of Mendez and Gualaquiza and that of Zamora were dismembered from it. After the revolution of 1875, when President Garcia Moreno was killed, the difficulties for the mission of N. increased, and from that time it was assisted by priests of the archdiocese of Quito. Finally in 1920 the vicariate of N. was entrusted to the Giuseppini del Murialdo.
Today it has a territory of 52,000 sq km with a population of 22,500 inhabitants, of whom about 20,000 are Catholics. The staff of the mission comprises 14 priests, 18 lay brothers, 21 Dorothean sisters of Vicenza, with 4 principal stations and 10 secondary ones, 4 churches, 6 chapels, 2 colleges for the Indians and 1 for girls of the white race, 5 elementary schools, 2 vocational schools, 4 pharmacies, 1 hospital. The missionaries have furthermore carried out assiduous work of civilization, for which they have received praise from the government and the public press. The mission presents particular difficulties for the work of evangelization because of the lack of roads and means of communication, the dangerous rivers, the enervating climate, the nomadic life of the natives and the often scandalous conduct of the whites. By a decree of Propaganda of 12 Apr. 1951 the boundaries were modified to the south with the apostolic prefecture of Canelos and to the north with that of St. Michael of Sucumbíos, which ceded part of its territory to the apostolic vicariate of N.
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Antonio Mazza