The
Catholic Diocese of Parassala was established in August 2017 and is the newest diocese in the Church. It lies at the southernmost part of India. The area of the diocese is one of the most backward in the whole of South India – economically, socially and educationally. The main source of income for most people is the daily labor which is not regularly and easily available. Though the children and youth in this region are intellectually gifted, they lack sufficient opportunities for primary and higher education. Hence one of the major pastoral projects of the diocese is education. Staying within our limitations as a new diocese, we are trying our best to provide educational opportunities to our children.
The
diocese of Parassala is purely a mission diocese, in the sense that all the faithful of the diocese embraced the Catholic faith in the past couple of decades from other religions as the result of the effective work of evangelization by many committed priests, sisters and lay faithful. The region is still very fertile for the work of evangelization. Most of our Faithful came from the lower castes of the Hindu religion, which forms almost 82% of the Indian population. As per the Indian legal system, these lower caste people, when they are Hindus, receive many reservations and benefits from the Government. But as they become Christians, they lose them. Though we have been fighting a legal battle against this injustice, we have not been successful so far. So it is the responsibility of the Church to do all that is required to promote these people and to bring them to the mainstream of the society.
The
diocese of Parassala has presently 103 parishes/mission stations and only 27 incardinated priests. We have not been able to concentrate on the promotion of vocations in this area as we had many other pressing missionary needs before us. In this part of the State, priests still function as the main agents of social change.
Therefore, one of the most urgent needs of the diocese is to promote vocations to priesthood and religious life which will in turn contribute to the overall development of the region. Moreover, this region provides great scope for the promotion of vocations. If proper attention is given to this field, we are sure, the diocese of Parassala will be able to provide priests and religious to other needy dioceses in the future. By the grace of God, we do not run short of candidates to priesthood, but due to the lack of resources we are not able to accommodate all the applicants. The diocese has to meet all their expenses during their formation, as their families are not in a position to do it. We just started the first batch of seminary students and fortunately, we have 16 candidates this year. The return of the mission preaching is envisaged to be used for supporting the seminary formation of our candidates for priesthood. Your generous support it deeply appreciated.