Prefecture Apostolic of Kwang-si

The Prefecture Apostolic of Kwang-si (now spelled Guangxi, ) was a Roman Catholic missionary jurisdiction.

History

The mission of Kwang-si comprised the entire Chinese imperial province of that name, a very mountainous and extremely poor region. The province had a population of about ten million souls divided among several distinct races, the most remarkable of whom are the settlers from the Canton, the Hakkas and the wild Yao-tse and Miao-tse.

The first missionary to Kwang-si was the Jesuit Father Michele de Ruggieri who in 1583 endeavoured without success to establish himself at the capital, Kweilin. Fifty years later the Franciscan, Francesco d'Escalone, arrived at Wu-chou.

About the middle of the seventeenth century, Father Andrew Xavier Koffler built a church at Kwei-lin and baptized at Nan-ning, under the name of Constantine, a son of the Emperor Yung-li, a pretender to the Ming dynasty, who still combatted in the southern part of the empire the advancing Manchu conquerors. Father Michel Boym laboured in company with Father Koffler. In 1692 Father Jacques Duval laboured to give further impulse to the work of his predecessors, and then came Fathers Chamaya and Lopez.

At the same time the Spanish Augustinians established themselves at Kwei-lin and Wu-chu, and the Franciscans at Ping-lo-fu. All were expelled in 1724 by Emperor Yung Chen and Kwang-si thenceforth remained without missionaries for a hundred and thirty years.

In 1848 Kwang-si, united to the mission of......
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