The Vicariate Apostolic of Natal (Latin: Vicariatus Apostolicus Natalensis) was a Roman Catholic missionary, quasi-diocesan jurisdiction in South Africa.
The history of the Catholic Church in South Africa goes back to 1660, when a French bishop and a few priests were saved from the wreck of the Marichal near the Cape of Good Hope.
Joannes Lansink, Jacobus Melissen and Lambertua Prinsen landed at Cape Town in 1803; the following year they were expelled.
The first vicar Apostolic, Marie-Jean-François Allard OMI, landed at Port Natal with five missionaries of the same French order.
The name of this colony dates from Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese voyager, who sighted its headlands on Christmas Day, 1497, which suggested the name of Terra Natalis.
In 1760 the Dutch had a trading settlement at the site of the present harbour of Durban, speedily abandoned; and more than a hundred years passed before Natal was again visited by Europeans.
The native belief system and polygamous customs conflicted with Catholicism, and the Dutch had an existing dislike for the religion, such that for seven years the missionaries failed to make any converts.
Here they were destined to battle against many obstacles, privation of the necessaries of life, difficulty of communication and poverty, which drove the missionaries to the verge of starvation.
Communication was extremely slow and difficult, generally either by wagons drawn by oxen or on horseback; during the rainy season travel was very dangerous, owing to the swollen rivers.
Under his successor, Charles Jolivet Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, appointed 30 November 1874, the Vicariate of Natal made rapid progress in the way of Christianity and civilisation.
Communication became easier, owing to the new railways and roads laid out across the country by the colonial Government of Natal.
Besides numerous boarding-schools in different parts of the vicariate, there were many parochial schools, some under the control of the colonial Government, receiving a subsidy proportioned to the number of pupils.
On 11 January 1951 the remaining territory was promoted as Metropolitan Archdiocese of Durban, with presently six Suffragan Dioceses: Dundee (Natal), Eshowe, Kokstad, Mariannhill, Umtata and Umzimkulu.