MISSION STATIONS. — In mission territories, besides the parishes of dioceses and the quasi-parishes of quasi-dioceses, there are also mission stations, which constitute the first nuclei of the future ecclesiastical organization. Generally, their boundaries are not clearly determined; at the outset the faithful are very few, and very often, instead of a church or oratory, they have only a separate place for sacred services.
In some missions they are called by different names; but in general a distinction is made between permanent or principal stations, where the missionary resides permanently, and secondary ones, visited only occasionally. The CIC does not mention them (cf. can. 216), especially since the very extensive faculties granted to missionaries provided for the various needs of the care of souls in the missions. According to the practice of Propaganda, expressed in the instruction of 25 July 1920 (Sylloge Prop. Fide, no. 141), mission stations form a single parish whose parish priest is the Ordinary, assisted by the missionaries as his missionary assistant vicars. The instruction of 8 Dec. 1929 states that they may be established only by the Ordinary (Sylloge Prop. Fide, p. 353), preferably in writing, at least in the case of principal stations.
These are considered by Propaganda «ad instar quasi-parrocchie» and, with the appropriate exceptions, many canons concerning parishes may be applied to them, although they lack juridical personality—for example, those concerning the administration of goods—so that their transformation into true parishes or quasi-parishes may be prepared.