PAOTING, DIOCESE of. - In northern China, in the central-western part of the province of Hopeh. It was erected as an apostolic vicariate, under the name of Central Celi, on 14 February 1910, by division from that of Northern Celi, and was entrusted to the French Lazarists.
On 15 April 1924 it ceded five civil sub-prefectures which, together Chengting (v.), gave rise
to the mission of Lihsien, Ankwo (v.). On 3 December 1924 it changed its name to the present one; in 1931 it passed to the Chinese secular clergy, and on 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was raised to the rank of a diocese suffragan to Pechino.
It has an area of 12,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of approximately 2,000,000 inhabitants, there were 79,000 Catholics, 72 priests, including 7 French Lazarists; 8 major seminarians; 2 lay religious and 85 nuns, of whom only 7 were foreign. Its institutions included 1 hospital, 2 medical dispensaries, 1 orphanage, and 1 workshop. The schools were all closed. In 1899 the mission numbered 12,000 Christians, of whom 2,000 were massacred by the Boxers in 1900; in 1902 they had returned to 12,700, in 1905 they rose to 26,283, and in 1910, the year of the erection of P., to 72,531, partly ceded to Lihsien in 1924. Thus the greatest development of Christianity in P. occurred in the first half of our century.