ENG-1959 — Page 348

RELIGION

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the beginning of World Refugee Year, a strong emphasis is being placed on vocational training. Church World Service, Lutheran World Relief, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the Salvation Army and the College Student Work Projects Committee, together with many denominational committees, are carrying on a wide variety of welfare and relief work. The World Council of Churches' office resettled over 1,300 non-Chinese refugees from China in a new life in other countries all over the world.

The Roman Catholic Church in Hong Kong was established by Papal decree on April 22nd 1841 as an ecclesiastical Prefecture with Monsignore Theodore Joset as its first Prefect Apostolic. Prior to this formal establishment, Roman Catholic missionaries from Macau came to the island to attend to the spiritual needs of the residents, particularly the many Catholics among the British soldiers.

The first Roman Catholic Church in Hong Kong stood 'between the Powder Magazine and the Barracks', a spot which is now the intersection of Wellington Street and Pottinger Street.

On November 17th 1867 the Prefecture Apostolic of Hong Kong was entrusted to the Pontifical Foreign Mission Institute, whose first Missionaries arrived in the Colony on April 9th 1858. Sixteen years later, on November 17th 1874 a Papal decree raised the status of the Prefecture of Hong Kong to an Apostolic Vicariate and Monsignor Timoleon Raimondi, until then Prefect Apostolic, was consecrated a Bishop and appointed first Vicar Apostolic of Hong Kong.

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The late Pope Pius XII, on April 11th 1946, raised the Vicariate of Hong Kong to the status of a Diocese and Bishop Henry Valtorta, the fourth Vicar Apostolic, became the first Diocesan Bishop of Hong Kong. Since 1951 Bishop Lawrence Bianchi, P.I.M.E., D.D., has been the Ordinary of the Diocese of Hong Kong.

The territory of the Diocese includes, besides the Crown Colony of Hong Kong, the Districts of Hoi Fung, Po On and Wai Yeung, on the mainland of China.

The Roman Catholic Church has thirty two parishes in the Colony, of which twenty two are in the urban areas of the island and Kowloon and ten in the rural districts of the New Territories.