WEIHAIWEI [WEIHAI], APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. - At the north-eastern extremity of the province of Shantung, in northern China.

It was erected as a mission sui iuris on 18 June 1937 with 5 civil sub-prefectures of the apostolic vicariate of Chefoo (v.); on 9 February 1938 it was elevated to an apostolic prefecture. From the outset it has been entrusted to the Order of Friars Minor, which, for the missionary work, sends there the religious of the regular province of St. Paschal of the Upper Rhine (Metz).

It has an area of about 20,000 sq km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of about 3,000,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 4000; the priests 7, all foreign, the seminarians 7, all minors; the nuns 16, of whom 3 were Chinese. Among the works were 1 hospital, 1 orphanage, 3 medicine dispensaries. The first seeds of the Gospel were scattered also in the territory of W., as in other centres of Shantung, towards the middle of the 17th century through the work of the Franciscans who came from the Philippine Islands; but a more continuous activity occurred only after 1894 with the erection of the apostolic vicariate of eastern Shantung (v. CHEFOO), which in 1930 ceded to the new mission of W. 1500 Christians.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: AAS, 23 (1931), p. 401; 30 (1938), pp. 312-13; Arch. di Prop. Fide, Incarto erezione W., 1931; GM, p. 312; Ann. de l'Egl. cath. en Chine 1948, Shanghai 1948, passim; MC, 1950, p. 322.

Adamo Pucci

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Weihaiwei [Weihai], Apostolic Prefecture of

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