TERRITORIES OF MISSION
I. Mission territories, in accordance with canon 252, are exclusively those dependent upon the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide (v. MISSIONS). At present they comprise various regions of the three Americas, all of Africa with the exception of the dioceses of Algiers, Oran, Constantine and Carthage, Egypt, northern Ethiopia, Angola and Mozambique; all of Pakistan, India excepting the patriarchate of Goa, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, French Indochina; Indonesia excepting the diocese of Dili; China excepting the diocese of Macao, Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania excepting the diocese of Honolulu and Easter Island; in the Philippine Islands only two vicariates and one apostolic prefecture.
In these territories the Church is organized into dioceses and quasi-dioceses (v.). Dioceses are found where the ordinary ecclesiastical hierarchy has been established, namely in India, Pakistan, Japan, China, Australia, America, Europe, recently in British West Africa and the Union of South Africa. In many regions dioceses and quasi-dioceses coexist. There are no prelatures nullius nor primatial or patriarchal sees. The patriarchal see of Goa is not dependent upon Propaganda. Quasi-dioceses represent the extraordinary hierarchy proper to missions, which however has arisen from historical exigencies. Very few are also found in certain territories transferred from Propaganda to the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Church. At present quasi-dioceses rather indicate the various stages in the development of the nascent Church, whose territory begins with a mission *sui iuris* and gradually, through the apostolic prefecture and vicariate, is elevated to a diocese, which represents the most perfect juridical ecclesiastical circumscription and in practice the most developed and best organized. Not every territory, however, passes through all the stages indicated. At present missions *sui iuris* are gradually disappearing and for several years none have been erected (v. ECCLESIASTICAL SUPERIOR). Even vicariates and apostolic prefectures, although still numerous, do not tend to increase in number, due to the gradual introduction of the ordinary hierarchy.
Missionary dioceses and quasi-dioceses are entrusted to a religious institute or to the indigenous clergy. None are entrusted to the clergy of a European or American diocese (cf. S. Paventi, *L’azione missionaria delle diocesi*, in *Missioneswissenschaftliche Studien. Festgabe Dindinger*, Aachen 1951, pp. 152-71; id., *De actione missionari diocesium*, in *Monitor ecclesiasticus*, 76 [1951], pp. 449-55). Territories entrusted to the indigenous clergy more closely approximate territories of common law. In the others there is a canonical commission from the Holy See, which, not in perpetuity but *ad nutum*, entrusts a given territory to an institute with the duty of providing it with sufficient personnel and means and granting rights such as that of the ecclesiastical superior of the territory belonging to the institute. In these territories the missionaries, in matters of religious discipline, are dependent upon the religious superior, who is often also called the regional superior especially in societies without vows; as regards the care of souls they are subject to the ecclesiastical superior. Thus there exists a diarchy, with mutual rights and duties clearly established by the instruction of Propaganda of 8 December 1929 and other documents.
The development of missionary organization tends to lead missionary territories toward a new juridical situation, which has already seen examples in India and then in China and especially in Japan. In future, territories will increasingly pass to indigenous Ordinaries, upon whom foreign missionaries will be dependent. To these may be entrusted the direction of some special works, such as colleges, schools, parishes. In Japan, however, they are entrusted with the apostolic work in a vast zone of the diocese or quasi-diocese for a determined time. The zone is considered a kind of forane vicariate with at its head the religious superior of the missionaries, to whom the local Ordinary communicates the necessary faculties. The other rights and duties of the two authorities are generally established by means of a convention, to be approved by Propaganda.