SAMARAI, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. - In the eastern region of Australian New Guinea.

Erected on 13 June 1946 with territory detached from the apostolic vicariate of Papua, which at the same time took the name of Port Moresby (v.). It is entrusted to the Australian province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who had been working since 1929 in the three civil divisions of which it is composed.

It has an area of about 200,000 sq km and a population of about 100,000 inhabitants of Papuan and Melanesian race, of whom 1,308 are Catholics and 585 catechumens, assisted by 9 missionaries, 7 brothers and 13 sisters. Primary stations 5 and secondary 26. Dispensaries 4, elementary schools 19, middle schools 5, vocational schools 5. Protestants number 72,000, having begun their activity about fifty years earlier. Pagans number about 25,000.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: MC, 1950, pp. 474-75; AAS, 38 (1947), pp. 82-83; Archivio S. Congr. de Prop. Fide, pos. prot. 1468/50.

Saverio Paventi

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Samarai, Apostolic Prefecture of

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