Catholic Church in Myanmar
In 1741, Benedict XIV definitely established the mission, appointing Father Galizia Vicar Apostolic, and placing the Barnabites in charge of the work.
The Barnabites having given up the mission, Pius VIII sent Frederic Cao, a member of the Congregation of Pious Schools, and titular Bishop of Zama (18 June 1830).
Gregory XVI placed the mission under the Congregation of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary (Congregatio Oblatorum Beatae Mariae Virginis, OMV) of Pinerolo, Italy, by appointing Giovanni Ceretti (+ December 29, 1855), a member of this institute, and titular Bishop of Adrianople (Edirne), as first vicar apostolic.
Giovanni Balma (+ April 5, 1881) succeeded as vicar apostolic on 5 September 1848, but the war with the British rendered his labours ineffectual, and the mission was abandoned around 1852.
[4] The British had in reality begun to assume control of Burma in 1824, but it was not until 20 December 1852 that the East India Company, after a bloody war, annexed the entire kingdom of Pegu, a territory as large as England.
For some ten years the mission remained under the administration of the vicar apostolic of Siam; but such a condition could not be indefinitely prolonged without compromising its future.
[4] This vicariate, which has been entrusted to the Missions Étrangères of Paris, was bounded on the north by the Chinese province of Yunnan, on the east by the River Salween, on the south by Karenni and Lower Burma, and on the west by Manipur, the Garo Hills, and the independent territories of Tipperah and Assam.
[4] In an early 20th-century population of 3,500,000 there were 7,248 Catholics, spiritually served by 22 European clergy of the Missions Étrangères of Paris and 3 native priests with 47 churches or chapels.
The stations having one chapel and a resident missionary were Pyinmana, Yamèthin, Magyidaw, Chanthagon, Myokine, Chaung-u, Nabet, Shwebo, Chanthaywa, Monhla, Bhano and Maymyo.
The language commonly used in this vicariate is Burmese, but residents ordinarily employ their respective native tongues, which accounts for the Chinese church at Mandalay.
This city of 188,000 inhabitants was a bustling centre of traffic between Lower Burma and the Province of Yunnan; hence the large Chinese element in the population.
Its boundaries, determined by decree on 26 August 1889, were: on the north the Chinese province of Yun-nan; on the east, the Mekong, the subsequent course of which bounds Cambodia and Annam; on the south, Karenni and Shan; on the west, the River Salween and part of the course of the Sittang.
It extends from the nineteenth to the tenth parallel of north latitude and beginning from Moulmein, forms a long and rather narrow strip of land shut in between Siam on the one side and the sea on the other.
Alexandre Cardot, titular Bishop of Limyra, Vicar Apostolic of Southern Burma, born at Fresse, Haute-Saône, France, 9 January 1859, and educated in the seminaries of Lunel and Vesoul and of the Missions Étrangères, began his labours in the mission field in 1879, and in 1893 was appointed coadjutor to Bishop Bigandet, his predecessor in the vicariate, who consecrated him at Rangoon (24 June 1893).
