YANGKU [YANGGU], Diocese of. - In the central-western part of the province of Shantung (northern China).

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 diocese suffragan of Tsinan. It has an area of 3,250 sq km. As of 30 June 1947, out of a total population of about 1,500,000 inhabitants, Catholics numbered 29,000; priests 16, of whom 1 German; major seminarians 15; sisters 18, of whom 4 foreign. Among the works, besides the minor seminary which was located at Poli, there were 2 hospitals, 8 medicine dispensaries, 2 orphanages, 142 schools. The residence of the Ordinary is at Poli, a locality that was also the first center of the activity of the Verbiti, who found 150 Christians there, the only ones in all of southern Shantung, when they arrived there 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 the missionary standpoint: in that year the Christians numbered 14,700 and the catechumens 3,000. 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 Tsingtso on 10 Nov. 1942, in the Consistory of 18 Febr. 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.

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: AAS. 27 (1935). pp. 39-40; 32 (1940). pp. 33-34; GM, p. 212; Annamarie de l'Egl. cath. en Chine 1945, Shanghai 1948, passim; MC, 1950, pp. 322-23.

Adamo Pucci

@incollection{ec12_yangku_diocesi_di, author = {Pucci, Adamo}, title = {Yangku, diocesi di}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {1732}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/yangku-diocesi-di} }

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Yangku [Yanggu], Diocese of

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