Like other apostolic prefectures, it is immediately subject to the Holy See. It was established on February 9, 1938, under the authority of American missionary priest John Angel Romaniello. Like other foreign missionaries, he was expelled from China at the time of the Korean war in the 1950s, however, he retained the legal office of prefect of Guilin in the church until the 1980s. In 1993 a bishop was consecrated for Guilin, Bishop Benedict Cai. The consecration of Bishop Benedict was done without the expressed approval of the Holy See and would therefore be subject to a penalty of automatic excommunication unless done under a perceived threat of force or done with secret permission from the Holy See. Bishop Benedict died on August 20, 2007, at the age of 90, as of 2015 no new bishop has been consecrated yet as his replacement and the tiny catholic community in Guilin has only one priest in one church for the entire region.
Churches
Guilin only has one catholic church in the entire region. Guilin region within Guangxi has about 4.5 million people, but there are only about 4000 Catholics, most of whom are merely migrants from other places who work in Guilin. This church is located slightly to the east of the intersection of jiefang lu and zhongshan zhonglu in downtown Guilin. It is located on the north side of jiefang lu, with a small park filled with palm trees between the street and the church. It has mass in Chinese at 8:00am on Sunday, and 7:30am on weekdays. The listed phone number of the church is 0773-2822107. The church was built in the early 2000s, replacing a much older church built in the 1930s that ceased to be used. When the church was built in the 2000s, the city government of Guilin planned to place a new building in between the church and the road, thus almost completely blocking all access and view of the church, however, because of replacement in the staff of the municipal government, this plan did not come to be and the city government instead placed a park instead. The church is dedicated to St Therese de Lisieux.
