New Guinea

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 27, 2 July 1903, Page 19

New Guinea

In referring last week to the Catholic missions in New Guinea we should have given the following figures : In the Vicariate-Apostolic of New Guinea (including British New Guinea and some of the adjoining islands) there were, in 1902, 25 missionary districts, 23 churches, 18 priests, 19 religious Brothers, 28 nuns, one superior day-school, 27 primary schools, two institutes of charity, and 3 227 children in the Catholic schools. In the recently established P.refecture-Apostolic of Northern New Guinea there were at the same time seven priests, six religious Bi others, and four nuns 'The activity and energy thrown of late years into this difficult missionfield has, no doubt, borne abundant fruit, and the little flock of 2000 native converts credited to our faith in 1897 must now, to judge from some of 'the figures given above, be a considerable number. And yet ' the organising secretary of the Anglican mission in New Guinea,' when speaking recently at Christchurch, mentioned only ' three missions 'as being at work in New Guinea — ' the Congregational, the Weslevan, and the Anglican.'