All one had to do was to pick up the phone and call someone from the Salesian congregation, or the Apostolic
Vicarate of Southern Arabia, and ask for a confirmation or statement or wait for a press conference.
"It was completely unexpected," said Father Wild Gandolf, secretary to Bishop Paul Hinder, Apostolic
Vicarate for Southern Arabia (Oman, Yemen, UAE) at the St Joseph's Cathedral.
189), while Chapter 5 provides a useful summary of the expansion of missionary activities in the region from the 1600s to the French colonial period and the beginnings of 'active proselytizing' with the creation of the
vicarate of Upper Tonkin in 1885 (p.