of Ngô Lợi (1831–1890). Official government statistics report that Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa claimed over 70,000 registered followers and 476 religious leaders as of 2005, centred in 76 places of worship spread across 14 provinces, mainly in Southern Vietnam. is a sect that is related to Cao Đài. Christianity Catholicism By far the most widespread Christian denomination in Vietnam, Roman Catholicism first entered the country through Portuguese and Spanish missionaries in the 16th century, although these earliest missions did not bring very impressive results. Only after the arrival of Jesuits, who were mainly Italians, Portuguese, and Japanese, in the first decades of the 17th century did Christianity begin to establish its positions within the local populations in both domains of Đàng Ngoài (Tonkin) and Đàng Trong (Cochinchina). Two priests Francesco Buzomi and Diogo Carvalho established the first Catholic community in Hội An in 1615. Between 1627 and 1630, Avignonese Alexandre de Rhodes and Portuguese Pero Marques converted more than 6,000 people in Tonkin. 17th-century Jesuit missionaries including Francisco de Pina, Gaspar do Amaral, Antonio Barbosa, and de Rhodes developed an alphabet for the Vietnamese language, using the Latin script with added diacritic marks. This writing system continues to be used today, and is called chữ Quốc ngữ (literally "national language script"). Meanwhile, the traditional chữ Nôm, in which Girolamo Maiorica was an expert, was the main script conveying Catholic faith to Vietnamese until the late 19th century. Since the late 17th century, French missionaries of the Foreign Missions Society and Spanish missionaries of the Dominican Order were gradually taking the role of evangelisation in Vietnam. Other missionaries active in pre-modern Vietnam were Franciscans (in Cochinchina), Italian Dominicans & Discalced Augustinians (in Eastern Tonkin), and those sent by the Propaganda Fide. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Catholicism successfully integrated into Vietnamese society and culture. The French missionary priest Pigneau de Behaine played a role in Vietnamese history towards the end of the 18th century by befriending Nguyễn Ánh, the most senior of the ruling Nguyễn lords to have escaped the rebellion of the Tây Sơn brothers in 1777. Becoming Nguyễn Ánh's loyal confidant, benefactor and military advisor during his time of need, he was able to gain a great deal of favor for the Church. During Nguyễn Ánh's subsequent rule as Emperor Gia Long, the Catholic faith was permitted unimpeded missionary activities out of his respect to his benefactors. By