YANGKU, DIOCESI DI

Erected as an apostolic prefecture on 13 Dec. 1933 with 6 civil sub-prefectures of the mission of Yenchow and entrusted to the Chinese secular clergy, elevated on 11 July 1939 to an apostolic vicariate and on 11 Apr. 1946 to a suffragan diocese of Tsianan. It covers an area of 3,250 sq. km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of about 1,500,000 inhabitants, there were 29,000 Catholics; 16 priests, of whom 1 was German; 15 major seminarians; 18 sisters, of whom 4 were foreign. Among its works, besides the minor seminary which was located at Poli, there were 2 hospitals, dispensaries of medicines, 2 orphanages, and 142 schools. The residence of the ordinary is at Poli, a locality which was also the first center of activity of the Society of the Divine Word, who found there 150 Christians, the only ones in all southern Shantung, when they arrived in 1882. The 6 civil sub-prefectures, ceded in 1933 by the apostolic vicariate of Yenchow for the erection of Y., were the most advanced from a missionary point of view: in that year there were 14,700 Christians and 3,000 catechumens. Fr. Thomas Tien Ken-sin, appointed apostolic vicar of Y. and titular bishop of Ruspe, received episcopal consecration in St. Peter’s in Rome from the hands of Pope Pius XII on 29 Oct. 1939; transferred to the apostolic vicariate of Tsingtao on 10 Nov. 1942, in the Consistory of 18 Feb. 1946 he was created cardinal, the first in China, and on 11 Apr. of the same year he was promoted archbishop of the new metropolitan see of Peking.