There walks among us a 21st century Francis de Sales.
Bishop George Pallipparambil of Miao (Salesian, of course!). Today, the diocese of Miao in a remote, nearly inaccessible region of the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh along the Chinese border, is home to 90,000 Catholics.
The story of the territory which would become the diocese of Miao in 2005 begins with the coming of French missionaries who were martyred in 1854. A missional outreach of the Salesians to the area in 1922 would lay the ground upon which Fr. Pallipparambil would be sent to walk in 1979 (Note: almost 40 years ago):
“Originally from Kerala, in southern India, Pallipparambil assisted in setting up a school for tribal children who had migrated south, long before he ever thought of dedicating his ministry to India’s northeastern region.”
The schoolchildren would become the bridge of trust to the adults, and the gateway to his long obedience:
As students from his school returned home well-fed, able to read and write, and Christian, the elders of warring tribes called a truce, and sent a message south with returning students.
Pallipparambil remembers the children delivering the message, which they had memorized: “Dear Father George, please come to us and tell us more about this God Jesus, who has done so much for our children.”
He smuggled himself north in 1979, and has remained there ever since.
And how did he begin? Not with carefully made plans but his job, he says, “is to listen and respond.”
And he discovered they were hungry for the Gospel.
“For them, the Gospel was something very meaningful; it brings liberation in a larger sense but particularly it gave them a dignity they had not known before.”
Today, the diocese has 28 priests, with another 68 from religious orders. They serve the 90,000 Catholics spread across the 17 thousand square miles of the diocese, much of it unreachable by car. While another bishop might view this as an intolerable shortage of priests, almost an impossible situation, Bishop Pallipparambil sees it as the key to continued growth in the diocese.
“No one leaves anything for the priest,” he told CNA. “They are the Church, they have to bring the gospel; they know this because they built it.”
When a new community begins in a village, it starts with meetings in the home of a lay catechist, when they grow to the point of needing a church, they physically build it themselves.
“The priests are essential, or course, for hearing confessions and saying Mass. But it is the lay people who evangelize, who form the Church. In the remote villages, lay missionaries are not bringing the people into a church somewhere else, they are staying there, building the Church.”
A contemporary story that begins in 1979 with one priest and 900 baptized faithful. To become a diocese in 2005—26 years later. And now a diocese of 90,000 Catholics.
To learn more, click on the links below. The video at the bottom of the page is 15 minutes has interviews with a priest, lay catechist and villager in the diocese.
The website for the Diocese of Miao
To read the history of the Diocese of Miao
A short video on the mission of the diocese.
The bishop who reaped a hundred-fold
Indian diocese responds to Vatican II's call to the nations
What Holy Week looks like in a remote Indian diocese
Indian diocese near China border sees faith increase, violence decrease