QUILON [KOLLAM], Diocese of. - It is located in south-western India. Tradition traces back to St. Thomas the Apostle the erection of a church at Q.
It is certain that from remote times there were Christians there, who later followed the Eastern schism. The diocese of Q. was erected by John XII in 1329. In 1544 St. Francis Xavier founded there a Christian community that withstood various persecutions and whose descendants form the oldest nucleus of the Catholics of the present diocese. With Portuguese rule the territory of the ancient diocese passed to Cochin, then to the apostolic vicariate of Malabar; whence in 1854 the apostolic vicariate of Q. was detached, which in 1886, with the establishment of the hierarchy in India, was elevated to a diocese. In 1939, the territory having again been dismembered for the erection of the diocese of Trivandrum of the Latins, the diocese of Q. was ceded to the secular clergy. It is a suffragan of Verapoly.
At present the diocese has an area of 3465 sq km and a population of 1,891,900 inhabitants, of whom 1,242,960 are pagans, 174,600 Muslims, 215,870 schismatics, 131,790 Protestants, 101,000 Latin Catholics, 21,500 Catholics of the Syro-Malabar rite. The priests number 85, all natives, 72 belong to the secular clergy and 13 to the Capuchin Order. The brothers number about fifteen, the sisters, between native and foreign, ca. 150. There is only the minor seminary. Elementary schools 58, middle schools 15, higher schools 5, vocational school
1. Hospitals 3 and various dispensaries, 1 orphanage, 1 foundling hospital. Primary stations 46, the churches are 70, the chapels 72. A small printing press prints the periodical « Catholica Actio ». The associations of Catholic Action are flourishing.
Bibliography3 works
Pompeo Borgna