By Lissy Maruthanakuzhy
Bengaluru: A leading church under the Archdiocese of Bangalore has decided to celebrate its 175 years in a different way. It adopted a poor parish and surrounding villages for development.
“The project will focus on providing access to livelihoods, to basic infrastructure in rural communities, capacity building, education and skill development of youth and school children in the village,” says Monsignor C Francis, parish priest of St Patrick’s Church in Bengaluru, capital of Karnataka state in southern India.
The priest, who is also the archdiocesan vicar general, told Matters India that their team of volunteers now works on empowering the people who live under the territory of Kadisenahalli parish and help their development in a sustainable and entrepreneurial manner.
According to Monsignor Francis, Kadisenhalli can develop into an ideal spot to “expose our youth to rural challenges.”
The 350-year-old village parish of Kadisenhalli is situated 90 km from the Bengaluru. It has a school with 216 children up to seventh grade.
The jubilee celebration has also brought together the parishioners to organize and participate in various initiatives, according to the priest.
To celebrate the milestone the parish plans to launch a coffee-table book that will unfold the history of the parish. The proceeds from the sale of the books will go towards the village adoption program.
Kadisenhalli village faces acute water shortage with its borewells having gone dry because of drought for the past four years.
“We will bring in professionals from relevant fields to train the residents in efficient water management practices, as well as to provide them with soft skills and job oriented training, and enhance sericulture development. We also plan to introduce English in the school curriculum,” Maria Clement Prakash, one of the youth of the parish, told Matters India.
“It is a good thing we thought of adopting this parish. We are fortunate to be part of this program and we will do our best to help the adopted parish,” he added.
St Patrick’s Church, earlier the Cathedral of the Archdiocese, was completed by 1842. It has 875 Catholic families and 3,500 Catholics. The parish has contributed three diocesan priests.
In 2016 being the year of Mercy the parish sponsored a borewell for the poor farmers of Thereapura village of Ramnagar district providing the villagers good drinking water facility, Monsignor Francis told Matters India.
Assistant pastor Father Bala Francis Kumar said the parishioners wanted to reach out to the needy across Bengaluru during the jubilee of their parish church. “They thought of reaching out to the needy communities across Bangalore during the church’s 175th anniversary,” he added
Pastor of St Antony’s Church in Kadisenhalli Father C Joseph said their parish serves six surrounding villages. “We have 76 Catholic families. I am interested in the all-round development of this community,” the Fransalian priest told Matters India.
He said the parish has organized a tailoring course for 50 women to support livelihood. “Now these women are stitching at home and supporting their famiies,” added the priest who has been in the 370-year-old parish for the past four years.
He appreciated St Patrick’s Church’s outreach program. “They have come together for a noble cause. When others see the great work and effort, it will instill a feeling of humanity in others and we hopefully see more parishes following this example,” he observed.
According to him, the villagers at Kadisenahalli face water scarcity, poor health and educational facility.
All open wells are dry. The bore wells dry up during summer making residents travel long distances for drinking water. The entire community depends on water brought by tankers. Most village wells are over 1,400 feet deep and water is contaminated by fluoride, calcium and hardness leading to health issues such as waist and back pain and gradual organ damage.
The monsoon has failed for the past four years here. Silk and milk are the main products generated by the villagers.
On October 16, 2016, Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio inaugurated the jubilee celebration with Mass.