Mission Territories

MISSION TERRITORIES. - Mission territories, according to canon 252, are exclusively those dependent on the S. Congreg. de Propaganda Fide (v. MISSIONI CATTOLICHE). 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 except the patriarchate of Goa, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, French Indochina; Indonesia except the diocese of Dili; China except the diocese of Macao, Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania except 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 erected, namely in India, Pakistan, Japan, China, Australia, America, Europe and, recently, in English West Africa and the South African Union. In many regions dioceses and quasi-dioceses coexist. There are no nullius prelatures nor primatial or patriarchal sees. The patriarchal see of Goa does not depend on Propaganda. The quasi-dioceses represent the extraordinary hierarchy proper to the missions, which however arose out of needs of a historical order. A very few are also found in some territory transferred from Propaganda to the S. Congr. Orientale. At present the quasi-dioceses mark rather the various phases of the development of the nascent Church, whose territory begins with the sui iuris mission and is gradually elevated, through the apostolic prefecture and the vicariate, to a diocese, which represents the juridically most perfect ecclesiastical circumscription and in practice the most developed and the best organized. Not always, however, does a given territory pass through all the various phases indicated. At present the sui iuris missions are disappearing and for several years none have been erected (v. SUPERIORE ECCLESIASTICO). Even the vicariates and apostolic prefectures, although still very numerous, do not tend to grow in number, because of the gradual introduction of the ordinary hierarchy.

Missionary dioceses and quasi-dioceses are entrusted either to a religious institute or to the indigenous clergy. None is entrusted to the clergy of a European or American diocese (cf. S. Paventi, L'azione missionaria delle diocesi, in Missionswissenschaftliche Studien. Festgabe Dindinger, Aachen 1951, pp. 152-71; id., De actione missionali diocesorum, in Monitor ecclesiasticus, 76 [1951], pp. 449-55). The territories entrusted to the indigenous clergy come closer to the territories of common law. In the others there is a commissio canonica on the part of the Holy See, which, not in perpetuity but ad nutum, entrusts a given territory to the institute with the duty of providing it with sufficient personnel and means and granting rights, such as that the ecclesiastical superior of the territory belong to the institute. In these territories the missionaries, as regards their religious discipline, depend on the religious superior, who is often also called regional superior, especially in societies without vows; as regards the care of souls they are subject to the ecclesiastical superior. Thus there is a diarchy, with reciprocal rights and duties clearly established by the instruction of Propaganda of 8 Dec. 1929 and by other documents.

The development of missionary organization tends to lead the mission territories toward a new juridical situation, which has already had examples in India and then in China and especially in Japan. In the future the territories will pass at an ever-increasing rate to indigenous Ordinaries, on whom foreign missionaries will have to depend. To these may be entrusted the direction of some special work, such as colleges, schools, parishes. In Japan, on the other hand, the apostolic work in a vast zone of the diocese or quasi-diocese is assigned to them for a determined period of time. The zone is considered as a kind of vicariate forane with the religious superior of the missionaries at its head, to whom the local Ordinary communicates the necessary faculties. The other rights and duties of the two authorities are generally established by means of an agreement, to be approved by Propaganda.

Saverio Paventi