Thank you, Bishop Earl Fernandes and Sister Zephrina Mary for giving us the opportunity to seek the love and support of the parishioners of your diocese for our missions.
When my bishop and I met you last year and explained the dire needs of our diocese, you invited us to participate into your missionary cooperation program. Thanks for inviting us; this is a great help for our orphanages and boarding homes and for the poor, remote parishes where we don’t have rectories to house priests.
This year, we were given the opportunity to visit four parishes in your diocese. The missionary priests – Father Mariadas Chatla and Father Sunder Raju Putty – visited the parishes and spoke about our missions. Thanks to all the pastors and the parishioners for your openness, love and support.
Our diocese of Guntur is a missionary diocese in southeast India on the Bay of Bengal. It was established in 1940 and entrusted to the local clergy.
There are more than 300,000 Catholics in the diocese out of a total population of more than 5 million. There are 101 parishes with nearly 500 mission stations and 200 catechists helping in the diocese.
Most of our Catholics are poor and suffer social discrimination. They completely depend upon their wages of less than $5 a day, mainly from farm labor, for their living. The work is seasonal, and people are left without employment for nearly four months a year.
To help the children from these poor families, we run more than 50 boarding homes/hostels/orphanages in our diocese, and more than 2,000 young children live in our facilities. Some children have no parents; some have only one parent.
This year, most of your donations to our missions will help support the children living in these boarding homes/orphanages.
We all know how important education is to our children. Thanks for your love and generous support to provide education for the orphans in our diocese. Thank you for giving life to our children with your support.
As I mentioned above, our diocese has more than 100 parishes and 500 mission stations. The Catholic population is slowly growing, and the number of people attending church and the number of baptisms increases every year.
Most of the mission stations lack chapels and rectories. In some mission stations, the priests gather the people in houses to celebrate the Eucharist, and the priests must live in rented apartments. Their landlords have limitations and regulations on the faithful who wish to visit the priests.
Building a rectory costs $50,000 to $60,000. Besides providing support to the orphanages, the diocese hopes to build a rectory at one of the mission stations with donations received from the missions this year.
The Catholics of our diocese are poor, yet their faith is strong, and they are committed to the Church and the sacraments. We are getting many vocations to the priesthood from these poor families.
Nearly 800 priests from dioceses across India are working in the United States. Years back, missionaries from America and other countries built the faith of our people. Now we are working as missionaries in the U.S. and other countries.
We never know how faith spreads and how God uses his people. Thanks for spreading the faith and the Gospel. Thanks for giving life to the poor of our diocese. May God continue to bless your diocese!
Father Joseph Madanu is the mission director for the Diocese of Guntur, India.