Patna gets new archbishop

By Matters India Reporter

Bengaluru: Pope Francis on November 9 accepted the resignation of Jesuit Archbishop William D’Souza of Patna.

This led to the automatic elevation of Coadjutor Archbishop Sebastian Kallupura as Patna’s metropolitan archbishop.

This was made public at 4:30 pm in India, says a press release from the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), the national body of the Latin rite bishops in the country.

Archbishop D’Souza, 74, resigned from the post a year ahead of the mandatory retirement age of bishops in the Catholic Church.

Archbishop Kallupura, 67, was former the bishop of Buxar, a diocese in western Bihar.

Archbishop Kallupura was born on July 14, 1953, at Teekoy, in Kerala’s Palai diocese. In 1971, he joined Mission Home, a minor seminary in Palai, for Patna diocese. He was ordained a priest on May 14, 1984. He holds a bachelor of education from Bombay University. He served the Archdiocese of Patna as parish priest in various parishes, as assistant treasurer, director of the archdiocesan social apostolate and director of the Bihar Social Forum.

He was elected Bishop of Buxar on April 7, 2009, and ordained on June 21, 2009. Pope Francis appointed him Patna’s coadjutor archbishop on June 29, 2018. He is currently the chairman of the CCBI Commission for Family and the Caritas India.

Archbishop D’Souza was born on March 5, 1946, at Madanthyar, Karnataka. He joined the Jesuits and was ordained priest on May 3, 1976. He did his philosophical studies in Shembanagur in Tamil Nadu and theology at Jnana Deepa Vidyapeet in Pune. He was superior of Jesuit communities in various places. He served as rector of the minor seminary in Muzaffarpur, parish priests in various parishes, secretary to the bishop of Muzaffarpur and the Jesuit provincial of Patna from 1995 to 2001.

He was appointed as the first bishop of the newly created of Buxar diocese on December 12, 2005 and ordained a bishop on March 25, 2006 at Mary Mother of Perpetual Help Cathedral Buxar. He was also the administrator of Muzaffarpur diocese for a year. He was the parish priest of Itarhi in Buxar district at the time of his appointment as bishop.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Patna on October 1, 2007. He has been a priest for 44 years and a bishop for 14 years.

Archbishop William was also known for his ecological ministries since 1996, especially when he set apart ten acres of prime land in the metropolis to build the first ever bio-reserve. He was the archbishop who wrote to all churches and communities not to indulge in electric illumination for Christmas since 52 kilograms of coal produces one unit of electricity.

He always urged his people to stand up and take action especially on the conservation of electricity and water, points out CCBI deputy secretary general Father Stephen Alathara.