TALI, DIOCESE of. - In the western part of the province of Yunnan, in southern China.
It was erected as a mission sui iuris, with 33 civil subprefectures of the apostolic vicariate of Yunnanfu (v. KUNMING), on 22 Nov. 1929, and was entrusted to the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bétharram, who had been present there since 1922. On 10 Dec. 1934 it was raised to an apostolic prefecture, and on 9 Dec. 1948 to a diocese, suffragan of Kunming.
TALI - TALLEYRAND PÉRIGORD CHARLES-MAURICE
It has an area of approximately 160,000 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of approximately 5,000,000 inhabitants, there were 7,524 Catholics and 2,461 catechumens; 20 priests, including 2 of the Chinese secular clergy; 2 foreign lay brothers; and 12 nuns, including 4 natives. Its institutions included 4 orphanages, 6 medical dispensaries, and 12 schools.
The Bétharram Fathers who arrived in the territory of T. in 1922 found it almost untouched from the missionary point of view: difficulties of terrain, malignant fevers, brigandage, a population partly primitive and reduced to a state of almost complete materialism, and partly Chinese, devoted to trade and to the exploitation of the primitive peoples, constituted so many obstacles to the advance of the Gospel, whose preaching claimed as victims 6 priests and 2 lay brothers. Yet there were fruits: as early as 1929 there were 1,428 baptized persons, with 472 catechumens and 2 seminarians.