By Fr. James M. Fannan, PIME

The year 2005 will mark an important anniversary of 150 years in the history of the Catholic Church in Bangladesh. It marks a giant step in the planting of the Church in the areas which make up the western side of Bangladesh as well as neighboring areas in India. That giant step was the decision of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith to assign the PIME missionaries to the area which was at that time given the designation "Central Bengal." It led to the beginning of the work of the new missionaries in 1855

Under British rule, Bengal was much larger than we think of it today. At that time it extended all the way to Patna in what is now Bihar. Thus, the term "Central Bengal" was used for this new area, which includes modern western Bangladesh. This decision to send missionaries to Central Bengal would ultimately lead to the formation of ten dioceses in India and three in Bangladesh: Dinajpur, Khulna, and Rajshahi; but all of this growth was a long time in the making.

Although the Portuguese had established the faith as early as 1522 in the Chittigong area of what is now Bangladesh and later in the Hooghly area of what is now West Bengal, the whole area that was later named "Central Bengal" was still basically bereft of the presence of missionary activity among the local indigenous population. The Catholics that were to be found in these areas were few, and they were either soldiers or people who came there for business purposes.

The decline of Portuguese influence and the rise of British influence led to a decline in the Catholic presence in Kolkata as well as in the surrounding areas. Protestant influence became dominant, and in many places of Central Bengal, the Protestants were the only known form of Christianity. The Baptists came to Jessore in 1802, and other Protestants followed elsewhere. Given the inability of the Portuguese to continue and expand on the foundations they had previously established in Bengal, the SCPF (Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith) decided to set up a new ecclesiastical jurisdiction throughout Bengal. Thus in 1834, they created Vicariate of Bengal. At this time, due to the nature of British protestant rule, the name diocese was not used, but for all practical purposes, that is what it was. The first Bishop for this vast area was Robert St. Leger, S.J.

It was his second successor, Bishop Patrick Carew who recognized that with just twelve priests, he could not possibly care for this immense area of Bengal with the resources at hand. In l853 he therefore divided the area into three regions: the Vicariate of West Bengal, the Vicariate of East Bengal, and the Prefecture of Assam. The result of this decision led to the arrival of the Holy Cross community in East Bengal. At first the Missionaries of Paris agreed to take Assam, but the cruel murder of one of their missionaries made them decide to withdraw from the mission entirely. Several other orders also refused to take over this new mission. It was then that PIME was invited to take over the area that would be expanded southwards to include an area that from then on would be known as Central Bengal.

The year 2004 marks the anniversary of a letter dated June 3, 1854, in which the PIME community was invited to come to Bengal. At that time they were called the Institute of St. Calocero of Milan because their headquarters was in that parish. The new area given to the PIME Missionaries was approximately what we would now call western Bangladesh and West Bengal, excluding Kolkota and its immediate surroundings (Krishnagar was about 100 kms. north of Kolkota.. The northern boundary was somewhat vague and went all the way to Bhutan.

On March 14, 1855, Pope Pius IX received the missionaries who would open this new mission. There were just three priests and one catechist brother because the PIME missionaries were a new community and had very few people to send. The priests were Fr. Albino Parietti, the superior, and Frs. Luigi Limana and Antonio Marietti. The catechist was Giovanni Sesana. Two months later, on May 17, 1855, the feast of the Ascension, they had reached Kolkata. After two weeks they left for Berhampore in what is now West Bengal. At that time, it was a British military base, and hence a priest was needed to minister to the Catholic soldiers (especially the Irish).

The first months were devoted to language study, especially English and Hindi, though they also studied Bengali. They were disappointed to find out that there were less than 300 Catholics in this vast area that had been entrusted to them. Moreover, the Catholics were not the Bengali speakers. They were outsiders. At first, the only church and rectory was at Berhampore because from time to time a priest used to come from Kolkata especially for the sake of the soldiers. This fact turned out to be a precious help for the missionaries because the chaplain received a salary. It was with this salary and the other meager funds that they had, that the missionaries could survive.

All who visited this mission were struck by the poverty of the missionaries who seemed to spend all they had to take care of the needs of the mission. The mission at the cantonment of Berhampore had already brought a Catholic presence to the area before the arrival of the PIME priests. This work in the cantonment finally led to the first church in neighboring Krishnagar. It was built by Fr. Thomas Zuburu, O.C. in 1846.

After a year had passed after their arrival, in July 1856, the three priests finally decided they were ready to work independently. Their goal was an indigenous church rather than simply a church of foreigners. Fr. Parietti stayed at Berhampore to care for the flock there as well as for the few Catholics of Murshidabad. Fr. Luigi Limana went to Krishnagar, and Fr. Antonio Marietti rented a house in Jessore town.

In all of these places, the Protestants were already well established. They had friends both in the government and among the wealthy foreign business class. It is to their credit that the Catholic Church was permitted to come and take root. It is to the credit of the missionaries that the Church flourished. Because the Catholic children were going to the Protestant schools, one of the first steps of Parietti was to set up a Catholic school in Berhampore. It was especially the Holy Childhood office in Paris and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in France which supported the work of these pioneers in Bengal.

In Krishnagar, the Protestants had arrived in 1804. It became the center of the activity of the CMS (Church Mission Society). The Protestants had already had some success and had set up a number of schools. By 1850 they claimed that they had 4,417 Christians in and around Krishnagar. However, already in 1845 some Protestants had already gone to Kolkata and asked for Catholic missionary to come and instruct them.

In April of 1845, Archbishop Carew sent a Portuguese priest, Fr. Thomas Zubiburu, O.C., and by the end of the year, he had one hundred Catholics. Originally he had worked in what is now Eastern Bangladesh around Noakhali. He set up a school, rectory, and chapel, which was dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The first stone was blessed on January 26, 1846. The present cathedral was later built on this very same site. He was working on the publication of a book of prayers in Bengali, but sadly he died before he could establish a strong Catholic presence. The mission declined after his death, and by the time Fr. Limana arrived on July 6, 1856, the chapel was being used as a hospital. Thus, in fact, there was only one church in use in the whole area entrusted to PIME, the one at Berhampore. The only other news we have of any previous Catholic activity in the area was again due to the cantonment at Berhampore. A priest who went to the cantonment, Fr. Varalli, also paid a visit in 1851 to other areas: he blessed a marriage at Krishnagar, in Khulna, he heard the confessions of two Europeans who were there at the time.

Thus, when Fr. Limana arrived in Krishnagar, it was almost like starting from zero. After three months, Fr. Limana was able to get back the Catholic property and gathered seven Catholic families together there. He believed that it was necessary for them to live together to be strengthened in their Catholic faith. Gradually the Catholic faith began to spread in neighboring areas. From the very beginning, conversions were coming at the expense of the Protestant churches, and this is quite remarkable when one considers how poor the Catholic Church was and how much better financed the Protestants were at that time. The Protestants already had a number of schools, and this pushed the Catholics to open their own schools to promote and sustain Catholic beliefs. Fr. Limana opened his school on December 8, 1856, just five months after his arrival there. The school grew rapidly, and by September of 1857 it had 42 students.

By the time Fr. Antonio Marietti arrived in Jessore in 1856, he also found that the Baptists were already well established ever since 1802. Interestingly, it was a Catholic trader, Joseph Barretto who protected the Protestants in the early days of their presence there. It is worth noting that the Bengali historian Jadunath Sankar states that much earlier the Jesuits were very much at home in the Jessore area in the court of the Hindu King Pratapaditya, but whatever fruits they may have gained were long forgotten under later Mughal and then British rule. There were, however, some Catholic Indigo planters of French origin who provided the nucleus of a small Catholic community in Jessore. In fact, before their withdrawal from Assam, the Missionaries of Paris had already contacted this group in 1851. Periodically a missionary used to visit them from Kolkata. By the time Fr. Marietti arrived, there was just a group of Indigo planters of French lineage who were left to represent the Catholic Church. As soon as he could Fr. Marietti set up residence in a thatched house and began to educate the young boys. Some of them he kept at his own home; the others were sent to Krishnagar.

In the midst of all this activity, there was the famous Sepoy rebellion in 1857 among the Indian soldiers. Although the first signs of the rebellion were precisely at Berhampore, fortunately for the mission of Bengal, nothing of any consequence occurred to really endanger the missionaries, but there were moments of real fear as massacres of Europeans occurred in many other parts of northern India. The missionaries all stayed at their post in spite of the danger. As it turned out, nothing happened to them, but since the rebellions usually broke out with no warning, no one could know at the time that no lives would be lost. It is interesting that Fr. Parietti had the impression that this rebellion had no popular support. Nevertheless, many times at night he carried the Blessed Sacrament with him to stay in the comparative safety of the jungle just in case!

The end of the rebellion was very important for the mission of Bengal. In fact, there were four more missionaries who had been temporarily stationed south of New Delhi in Agra. They were trapped during a siege by the rebel soldiers. They, however, also survived this trial with their lives intact, though the situation had been quite dangerous and difficult during the siege at Agra. When the rebellion had ended, it was not much longer before these missionaries were freed from other duties. So it happened that four more missionaries arrived in Bengal in 1859.

There were three priests and one catechist in this group. The priests were Frs. Luigi De Conti, Angelo Curti, and Luigi Brioschi. The catechist was Brother Paulo Mauri. Fr. Curti, however, almost immediately decided to go to Kolkata to continue working as a military chaplain rather than to take up the work of implanting the Church among the Bengali people. Eventually he returned to Europe.

However, another important change was to come to the mission. After beginning their work, the first group of missionaries soon understood that what they really needed to work effectively was the help of sisters. They realized that the sisters could effectively reach out to the women and children of the Bengali community. Already in a letter of November 5, 1857, Fr. Marietti informed his superior in Italy that they needed to look for some sisters. By the end of 1859, the Italian superior, Fr. Marinoni was able to arrange for the arrival of the Sisters of Charity of Lovere (Capitanio Sisters or Sisters of Maria Bambina). This idea was new at the time because the conditions of the mission seemed impossibly hard for European women. Bishop Ramazzotti, who became Patriarch of Venice, smoothed the way for bringing about this decision. They were accompanied by another new PIME Father, Enrico Longa. They were met by the Italian Consul in Kolkata on March 11, 1860. By March 17, they were already at Krishnagar and took charge of the girls’ school. Thereafter, they opened an orphanage as well. The arrival of the sisters undoubtedly contributed to the growing esteem which the Catholic came to enjoy in Bengal. Local Hindu leaders quickly made it known that they would like sisters for all the schools for girls in Krishnagar. This growing esteem for the work of the Catholic Church also contributed to numerous conversions from the Protestant communities.

The growth in numbers of the missionaries permitted new efforts to extend the presence of the Church to totally new areas. Fr. Parietti received an invitation from the Muslim Nawab of Murshidabad to visit him. The result of the visit was the arrangement of a small chapel for the thirty-nine Catholics who worked for the Nawab. Meanwhile, in Berhampore, Fr. Parietti bought land to bring together the Catholics so as to deepen their Catholic life. He also built an orphanage and a school. The arrival of the new missionary, Fr. De Conti, gave Fr. Parietti the freedom to go farther afield.

Meanwhile, in Jessore, Fr. Marietti received the help of Fr. Brioschi. He therefore went to new areas in Jessore and Khulna. Fifty kilometers from Jessore, at Bodparia, a village asked for a Catholic missionary. This resulted in a new chapel and a school large enough for one hundred children. In several places Baptist congregations, together with their catechists also joined the Catholic Church. At Batenparia, it was the Anglican priest, Rev. Fox who entrusted his whole congregation to the Catholic Church before returning to England. Some sources state that he himself joined the Catholic Church thereafter. In 1861, Fr. Longa took the place of Fr. Brioschi for a year, and then he in turn was replaced by Fr. Conti till 1864. Then it was the turn of yet another new missionary, Fr. Parode Bertoldi to come to the aid of Fr. Marietti in the mission at Jessore.

A group of Baptists from the village of Malgachi came all the way from the Sundarbans to Fr. Parietti. The first Catholic baptisms there took place on May 17, 1860. The first evangelization by the Baptists was bringing an abundant harvest for the Catholics. A man named Ramchand from Jagonondakati heard about a Baptist missionary, Rev. Anderson. He came met Fr. Marietti while looking for Rev. Angerson. As a result, Fr. Marietti agreed to return with him to his village, and the first baptisms were in November of 1859. This led to friends and relatives from Simulia and Beniali also joining the Catholic Church, and so on Christmas day of 1861, Fr. Marietti baptized some of them. Back in Jessore, Fr. Marietti was able to open a girls’ school under the care of the Capitanio sisters in 1864. He had already opened a school for boys.

In Krishnagar, Fr. Limana received the help of two missionaries: Fr. De Conti and the lay catechist, brother Sesana. These two opened up a new mission near Bhoborpara at Bollapur. This time again it was a case where 40 Protestant families joined the Catholic Church. This is one of the characteristics of the early days of this mission. Certainly it was not due to the wealth of the Catholic Church. The opposite was true. The Catholic Church was poor, but conversions among Protestants continued. Understandably, the Protestants were very much against this development, but their efforts to stop it were quite often unsuccessful. In the end, Fr. De Conti decided to move the mission house and school to the nearby village of Deripur. The first Catholic baptisms took place there on December 7, 1860.

Soon after this, Fr. Brioschi took charge of the mission. Two miles south of Bhoborpara, at Fulbary, an indigo planter decided to sell his house and land at a bargain price. Fr. Brioschi seized the opportunity. Thus, in 1863, the center was moved there. Meanwhile, conversions to Catholicism continued to take place around Bhoborpara. The Catholic families of Deripur moved to the new center at Fulbary, and the first baptisms there took place on August 15, 1863.
Then a new priest arrived, Fr. Remigio Pozzotti to help Fr. Brioschi with the new converts. The traditional work of most of these people was selling fish. Meanwhile, back in Krishnagar itself in December of 1859, Fr. Limana was able to send the first graduates of his school to work as teachers and catechists to further extend the outreach of the Church.

During this period, the sisters of Maria Bambina continued to arrive to help the new mission. On April 25, 1863, Sisters Agostina, Benedetta, and Nazarena arrived in Krishnagar together with Sister Annunciata Comminati. Their final goal was Jessore. One year later, they were able to open a girls’ boarding school at Jessore. In 1865 two more sisters arrived. At this time, Sister Cecelia Uetz came to replace Sister Angela Bagli, who was being sent back to Italy because she was dying of tuberculosis.

After some experiences with the schools and hospital work, the sisters were ready for a new experiment – going to do catechetical work in the rural villages. The first experiment was in Fulbary near Bhoborpara. Two sisters went there to prepare the women for confirmation. This experiment was such a success that thereafter the sisters went each year during the dry season, and the idea was extended to the Jessore mission as well. With that, we can see that the missions had reached the classic form that they were to follow for years to come.