CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CHINA.

New Zealand Tablet, 5 June 1919, Page 42

CATHOLIC MISSIONS IN CHINA.

Some very interesting details regarding the Catholic missions in China are offered by Father Peter Chan, S.J., a native Chinese priest who has just completed his studies in Europe and is conversant with French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English (says America). China, with its 430,000,000 inhabitants, is at present supplied with only 2267 priests, while Protestant missionaries number more than 25,000. The total Catholic population is about 2,000,000, and there are about 400,000 Protestant Chinese. The time for reaping a rich harvest of souls is now at hand, and the total number of conversions to the Catholic Church during the past year was 130,000. There is need only of priests, nuns, and the necessary financial aid. Father Chan thus describes his own special mission field : “In the year 1912 a new mission was established in the south of China, with headquarters in the town of Shiu-Hing, 70 miles from the great city of Canton. In this district the pagans number 6,000,000, and the Catholics 1000 only, with 300 catechumens preparing for Baptism. The mission is the work of Portuguese Jesuits, exiled from their native country, and illustrates the truth that persecution results in spreading the faith to other lands. There are five Jesuit Fathers and one secular priest, and six native Chinese scholastics of the Society of Jesus. There are also six nuns, Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, two being Irish, who carry on a school for girls and a house of the Society of the Holy Childhood for the rescue and education of abandoned children. Up to the present time, in the territory of 6,000,000 inhabitants, there is no church worthy of the name, but only two poor and very small chapels. Father Chan is anxious that a church should be erected in honor of the Sacred Heart, together with a small college and seminary for the education of boys and the preparation*of candidates for the priesthood. It is estimated that 25,000 dollars might accomplish this purpose. The family to which Father Chan belongs has : been Catholic for 250 years, clinging to the faith

during more than a century of'persecutions and afflictions. They now have the joy of seeing the ancient faith resuming new life and' vigor. • = : '-T