SHIUCHOW, DIOCESE of. — In the northwestern part of Kwangtung province, in southern China.
It was erected as an apostolic vicariate on 9 April 1920, with territory detached from the Canton mission, and was entrusted to the Salesian Society of S. Giovanni Bosco, which, for missionary work, sends religious belonging to the Chinese regular province based in Macao. On 11 April 1946, with the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in China, it was elevated to a suffragan diocese of Canton. It covers an area of 34,500 sq km. On 30 June 1949, out of a resident population of approximately 2,500,000 inhabitants, there were 5,205 Catholics and 283 catechumens; there were 7 Chinese secular priests and 18 Salesians. The auxiliary personnel comprised 2 Salesian lay brothers, 10 Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and 18 Chinese women religious, 24 catechists, and 74 teachers. The institutions included 20 dispensaries, 2 orphanages, 1 home for the elderly and 1 for the blind, 14 churches, and 21 chapels scattered throughout the territory, which was divided into 11 districts
with 17 primary stations and 26 secondary ones. The 19 elementary schools had 2,344 pupils, the secondary school 197, the vocational school 11, the catechetical school 7, and the 6 schools of prayer and elementary instruction 122 pupils.
The first Christian preaching in S. dates back to Fr. Matteo Ricci, who resided in this city when he was expelled from Schiuhing in 1589; French and Portuguese Jesuits subsequently worked there. In the middle of the 19th century, the entire province of Kwangtung passed to the Society of the Foreign Missions of Paris, which was succeeded in S. by the Salesians, who arrived there in 1918. Mons. Luigi Versiglia, assassinated on 25 February 1930 together with his young missionary Fr. Caravario, was the first apostolic vicar of S.