Pakhoi [Beihai], Diocese of

PAKHOI [BEIHAI], Diocese of. - In China, on the extreme 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 taken from the mission of Canton (v.) and was named the apostolic vicariate of Western Kwangtung and Hainan, changed to its present name on 3 Dec. 1924; on 15 Apr. the island of Hainan (v.) was erected as an independent mission. On 11 Apr. 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a diocese, suffragan of Canton. It has been entrusted, from the beginning, to the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris.

It has an area of 22,000 sq km. As of 30 June 1950, out of a total population of about 3,000,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 15,105 and catechumens 449. The missionary personnel, besides the bishop, counted 18 foreign priests and 9 Chinese; the auxiliary personnel, 72 sisters, of whom 60 were Chinese; 31 catechists, 13 teachers, 7 baptizers, 1 doctor and 16 nurses. In the small seminary 45 students were studying, 3 in the regional one in Hong Kong and 1 at the Urban College in Rome. In the territory, divided into 18 primary stations and 340 secondary ones, there were 10 churches and 28 chapels. The works included the hospital, 14 dispensaries, 4 orphanages, 2 homes for the aged, 1 leper asylum, 5 elementary schools.

According to a local tradition, the first missionary would have arrived in this region in the first half of the 17th century; the existence of Christians before 1646 is attested by some tombs found in the surroundings of Luichow, while three tombs of the Catholic cemetery at Hoikow and Kiungchow, dated between the years 1660 and 1680, one of which bears the name of Fr. de Matba, bear witness to the presence of the Jesuits in that century. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus, only a few Chinese priests were sent periodically from Macao. In 1848 Kwangtung was entrusted to the Foreign Missions of Paris and the following year Fr. Amat arrived there, who died of cholera in 1863.

Adamo Pucci