The Roman Catholic Diocese of Macau was established on January 23, 1576 by the edict of Pope Gregory XIII. It originally covered China, Japan, Vietnam and the Malay archipelago, with the exception of the Philippines. It now only administers Macau alone, the last regions outside Macau under its administration were the parishes of Saint Joseph (Singapore) and Saint Peter (Malacca), which separated from the Diocese of Macau in 1981.
D. José Lai (黎鴻昇) is the current bishop, the first born in Macau and the second Chinese bishop (the first is Domingos Lam 林家駿). Its patron saints are Francis Xavier and Catherine of Siena, and its motto is Scientia et Virtus (Knowledge and Virtue).
The diocese is an immediate subject of the Holy See, instead of being in an ecclesiastical province. From its founding until 1975, the diocese was a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Goa, but this was changed following Portugal's loss of sovereignty over Goa.
Read more about Roman Catholic Diocese Of Macau: Parishes, List of Bishops
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