The Catholic Church in Macau is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. The history of Catholic church in Macau can traced back to 1576 under the leadership of the Pope. Catholic church in Macau was built not only with the purpose of prayers and atonement but also as rally point for Portuguese to gather up and act as a midway for missionaries going to deeper part of China and south east Asia. The Catholic church within Macau has played an important role on the spread of Catholicism in Japan, Vietnam and China and other parts of south east Asia. The Catholic church in Macau has provided schooling, missionary training and preaching the gospel to the local catholic and non-catholic communities. There are around 30,000 Catholics in Macau (around 5% of the total population), which forms a single diocese, the Diocese of Macau. The current bishop of Macau is Stephen Lee Bun-sang (since 2016).