TOUNGGO, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF. - Situated in southeastern Burma to the west of the Salween River, it comprises the Karen State, the southern federated Shan States west of the Salween, the part of the civil district of Yametin south of the 20th parallel, and the part of the district of Toungoo north of 18° 45' north latitude.
The population consists of Burmese, who are Buddhists, and Karens, peaceful farmers inhabiting the mountains, who are divided into various tribes, the best known being the Red Karens and the Gebus to the east of the Sittang. There are also minorities of Indian immigrants, and Chinese are not lacking. The Karens are animists and were the first to whom the missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan, to whom the vicariate is entrusted, turned when they arrived in Toungoo in 1868. The apostolic vicariate of Southern Burma, detached from the apostolic vicariate of Ava and Pegu and erected on 27 November 1866 and definitively on 19 July 1870, changed its name to that of Toungoo on 27 April 1927, when the prefecture, now a vicariate, of Keng-Tung was separated from II. The apostolate continues to be carried out especially among the Karens, since the Burmese Buddhists are rather refractory to Christianity.
It covers an area of 79,000 sq. km. and has a population of about 1,273,000 inhabitants, of whom 37,000 are Catholics with more than 3,000 catechumens, 23,000 Protestants, 8,000 Muslims, 12,000 Hindus, 300,000 animists, and 890,000 Buddhists. There are 42 priests (of whom 18 are indigenous), 4 lay brothers, 92 sisters (half foreign and half native), 319 male catechists, and 11 female catechists. Ecclesiastically, the mission is divided into 3 primary stations and 332 secondary ones, with about twenty churches and 315 chapels. There is a minor seminary. There are 54 elementary schools, 20 middle and teacher-training schools, 34 orphanages, 1 leper hospital, and 6 general hospitals. There are also 17 dispensaries. A printing press publishes religious and school books in the various Karen languages and a Catholic periodical.