austraLasia 1464

The Bishop of the mighty Brahmaputra

ARUNACHAL: 25th February 2006 -- Tomorrow, 26th February will see the episcopal consecration of India's 23rd Salesian Bishop in India (some eight of whom are still alive and active).  He will be bishop of the new diocese of Miao, containing the major headwaters and initial tributaries of the mighty Brahmaputra river.  His new diocese will be bordered by Tibet, China, Myanmar to the north and east, and by the Indian states of Nagaland and Assam to the south and west.  Bishop George Palliparambil was the first resident priest in Arunachal, Borduria, which is now the heartland of a new diocese created by Pope Benedict XVI on December 7, 2005.
    The first Christian and Catholic missionaries to broach this forbidding territory were from the Paris-based Foreign Missions Association.  That was 1854 and they were on their way to Tibet.  They never made it.  That year they met opposition and martyrdom in Arunachal Pradesh.  The Salesians came in 1922 - to Assam - and later, young Fr Menamparambil, then Rector in Shillong and now Archbishop of Guwahati, palled up with a young tribal chief in Arunachal.  It became the turning point for visits to and pastoral work in East Arunachal. People accepted Jesus Christ with open arms.  It went on from there.  In 1992 Fr George Palliparambil took up the mantle.  In 1992 Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity came to Borduria, and Don Bosco School opened ten years later.  
    As the first resident priest in the area, Fr George opened a total of eleven centres, Miao, the episcopal see for the new diocese, being one of them.   As of today the Catholic population of East Aranuchal is approximately 70,000 in a population of more than 4 million.  He will have 6 diocesan priests but will have the support of many religious - Salesians, Society of the Divine Word, Society of St. Francis Xavier, and the Heralds of the Good News. Additionally there are Salesian Sisters, Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians, Missionary Sisters of Charity, Carmelite Missionary Sisters and Sisters of Mary Immaculate.  There are also active members of the Don Bosco Secular Institute.
    East Arunachal describes itself as a mysterious, magical and mystical land tucked away in India's far North-east, in fact it calls itself Land of the Rising Sun, pace one other well-known nation which adopts that title!
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