MISSIONARY STATIONS. - In mission territories, besides the parishes of the dioceses and the quasi-parishes of the quasi-dioceses, there are also mission stations, which form the first nuclei of the future ecclesiastical organization. Generally their boundaries are not well defined; at the beginning the faithful are very few, and very often, instead of a church or oratory, they have only a separate place for sacred functions.
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 stations, visited only occasionally. The CIC does not speak of them (cf. can. 216), all the more so since the very broad 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, n. 141), the mission stations form a single parish whose pastor is the Ordinary, who is assisted by the missionaries as his missionary coadjutor vicars. The instruction of 8 Dec. 1929 says that they can be established only by the Ordinary (Sylloge Prop. Fide, p. 353), possibly in writing, at least for the principal stations.
These are considered by Propaganda "ad instar quasi-parochiae" and, with the due exceptions, many canons concerning parishes can be applied to them, even though 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.
Bibliography
Saverio Paventi