The Catholic Church in Thailand is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. According to Catholic Social Communications of Thailand, there are 388,468 Catholics in Thailand, a figure that represents about 0.58% of the Thai population of 69 million. There are 11 dioceses with 526 parishes and 662 priests. History The first historical record of an attempt to introduce Christianity to Thailand is owed to John Peter Maffei who stated that about 1550 a French Franciscan named Bonferre, hearing of the great kingdom of the Peguans and the Siamese in the East, went on a Portuguese ship from Goa to Cosme (Peguan), where for three years he preached the Gospel, but without any converts. In 1552 Francis Xavier, writing from Sancian to his friend Diego Pereira, expressed his desire to go to Siam, but his death on 2 December 1552, prevented him. In 1553 several Portuguese ships landed in Siam, and at the request of the king three hundred Portuguese soldiers entered his service. The following year two Dominicans, Fathers Hieronymus of the Cross and Sebastian de Cantù, joined them as chaplains. In a short time, they established three parishes at Ayutthaya with about fifteen hundred converted Siamese. Both missionaries, however, were murdered by locals in 1569, and were replaced by Fathers Lopez Cardoso, John Madeira, Alphonsus Ximenes, Louis Fonseca (martyred in 1600), and John Maldonatus (d. 1598). 17th century In 1606 the Jesuit Balthasar de Sequeira, at the request of the Portuguese merchant Tristan Golayo, and in 1624 Father Julius Cesar Margico, came to Ayutthaya and gained the favour of the king. A subsequent persecution, however, stopped the propagation of the Christian faith and no missionaries were allowed until Siam was made a Vicariate Apostolic by Pope Alexander VII on 22 August 1662. Soon after, Msgr. Pierre de la Motte-Lambert, Vicar-Apostolic of Cochin China, arrived at Ayutthaya, accompanied by Fathers De Bourges and Deydier. In 1664 he was joined by Msgr. Pallu, Vicar Apostolic of Tong King. Siam, in those days a rendezvous of commercial enterprise in the East, gave shelter to several hundred Annamite and Japanese Christians who had been expelled or lived there as exiles due to persecutions at home. Some Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits, Franciscans, and Augustinians provided the spiritual care of their countrymen in Siam. Msgr. Pallu, on his return to Rome (1665), obtained a Brief from