PAKHOI, DIOCESE of. — In China, on the farthest coast of the South China Sea, in the civil province of Kwangtung, on the border with Tonkin.
It was erected as an apostolic vicariate on 1 Aug. 1920, with territory CANTO (v.) and was given the name Apostolic Vicariate of Western Kwangtung and Hainan, changed to its present one on 3 Dec. 1924; on 15 Apr. Hainan (v.) was erected as an independent mission. On 11 Apr. 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was raised to a diocese, suffragan to Canton. From the beginning, it has been entrusted to the Society of the Foreign Missions of Paris.
It covers an area of 22,000 sq km. As of 30 June 1950, out of a total population of approximately 3,000,000 inhabitants, there were 15,105 Catholics and 449 catechumens. The missionary personnel, besides the bishop, consisted of 18 foreign priests and 9 Chinese priests; the auxiliary personnel comprised 72 sisters, 60 of them Chinese; 31 catechists, 13 teachers, 7 baptizers, 1 physician, and 16 nurses. Forty-five students were studying in the minor seminary, 3 in the regional one at Hong Kong, and 1 at the Collegio Urbano in Rome. In the territory, divided into 18 primary and 340 secondary stations, there were 10 churches and 28 chapels. The institutions included a hospital, 14 dispensaries, 4 orphanages, 2 homes for the elderly, 1 leprosarium, and 5 elementary schools.
According to a local tradition, the first missionary is said to have arrived in this region in the first half of the seventeenth century; the existence of Christians before 1646 is attested by several tombs found in the vicinity of Luichow, while three tombs in the Catholic cemetery at Hoikow and Kiungchow, dated between 1660 and 1680, one of which bears the name of Fr. de Matba, testify to the presence of the Jesuits in that century. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus, only an occasional Chinese priest was sent periodically from Macao. In 1848 Kwangtung was entrusted to the Foreign Missions of Paris, and the following year Fr. Amat arrived there; he died of cholera in 1863.