PENGPU, Diocese of
In the northern part of the province of Anhwei, in central China. It was erected as an apostolic vicariate on 21 February 1929, with 21 civil sub-prefectures taken Wuhu (v.) and entrusted to the Society of Jesus, which, for missionary work, sent there the fathers of the regular province of Turin, who had been on site since 1910. On 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a suffragan diocese of Anking.
It has an area of 60,000 sq. km.; in 1950 it had about 9,500,000 inhabitants, of whom 64,334 were Catholics with 13,270 catechumens; 6,000 Protestants and 100,000 Muslims. Besides the bishop, there were 41 foreign priests and 6 Chinese priests, of whom 2 were Jesuits; 3 major and 18 minor seminarians. Auxiliary personnel: 8 lay brothers, 59 sisters, of whom 50 were Chinese, 68 catechists, 350 teachers, 22 baptizers and 9 nurses. It also had 26 primary and 209 secondary stations with 86 churches and 23 parishes. The works included 27 dispensaries, 3 orphanages and 1 foundling hospital, 32 elementary schools, 4 middle schools and 3 higher schools.
When in 1842, from the apostolic vicariate of Nanking, the first French Jesuit missionaries were sent to the civil province of Anhwei, there were only 441 faithful, survivors of the ancient Christians. In 1891 the missionaries numbered 28, the residences 25, the Christian communities 138, the baptized 7,280 and the catechumens 2,431. Missionary work grew ever more and the fruits were so abundant that in 1929 the single apostolic vicariate of Wuhu, comprising the entire province, gave rise to the two new missions of Anking and P., and the latter was able to have 21 priests, of whom the Chinese, 4 lay brothers, 5 coadjutor brothers, 119 Christian communities, 34,186 Christians and 10,194 catechumens.
PENITENT RECOLLECTINE SISTERS OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF ROOSENDAAL
The Institute originated from the ancient monastery of Louvain, suppressed by the French Revolution in 1796.
Some nuns, who had taken refuge in Holland, founded a house in Breda and resumed their life under the Rule of the Third Order of St Francis and the Constitutions of the Recollect Tertiaries. The Roosendaal branch properly dates from 1832, when Sister Maria Giuseppa of Jesus (Maria Raaymakers) began another work with eminently educational and penitential aims. The Institute soon developed considerably. The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda approved its Constitutions for a decade on 1 October 1869 and in perpetuity on 11 March 1883. Later they were adapted to the Code with the approval of the Sacred Congregation of Religious.
The purpose of the Institute is the education of young women and the expiation of the evils of the world through a life of rigorous penance. At present it has 42 houses with 1,130 sisters.