By the beginning of the 20th century, there were about 23,000 Catholic adherents, 55 churches and chapels, representatives of monastic orders, and social and educational institutions (orphanages, schools and a seminary and college). Many Roman Catholic missionaries arrived in the first half of the 20th century. , Thailand has about 400,000 Catholics. On 22 October 1989, the catechist Philip Siphong Onphitak and six companions (nuns and laymen), who had been executed by Thai police during the Franco-Thai War of 1940 on the suspicion that they were French spies, were beatified as the Martyrs of Thailand.