By Jose Kavi
New Delhi, April 30, 2022: Pope Francis on April 30 appointed Salesian Father Nirmol Vincent Gomes as the bishop of Krishnagar, a diocese in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.
This was announced at 12 noon in Rome.
The diocese was without a bishop after Pope Francis April 17, 2019, accepted the resignation of Bishop Joseph Suren Gomes, who had crossed the mandatory retirement age of 75 for Catholic prelate. He was the diocese’s seventh bishop since May 31, 2002.
The Pope then appointed Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta as the apostolic administrator of the diocese.
The newly elected bishop was born on February 8, 1959, in Ranaghat, in the diocese of Krishnagar. He studied at the Minor Seminary at the Don Bosco School in Bandel. He did his philosophical studies at the Salesian College in Sonada and received his theological formation at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome.
He did a Licentiate in Pedagogy at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome (1988-1991). He also holds a doctorate in Religious Education from the same Pontifical University (1997-2000), according to a press release from Father Stephen Alathara, deputy secretary general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in India.
He was his religious profession as a Salesian on May 24, 1979, and was ordained a priest on July 22, 1989 in his native parish.
He served as the dean of studies in the Salesian College in Sonada during 1991-1997. After his doctorate in 2000, he became the rector of the Salesian College, Sonada until 2006.
He then went to Krishnagar in 2006 as a confessor in the Don Bosco School and later became its rector, a post he held during 2007-2009. He also served as the vice-rector of the Salesian College in Siliguri from 2010 to 2013 and was made rector of the same college from 2013 to 2014.
In 2014, he was named the head of the Salesians’ Kolkata province, a post he held until 2019. From 2020-2021, he became a confessor in the Nazareth Bhawan Novitiate in Dhajea.
Krishnagar diocese is located in the central region of West Bengal and covers civil district of Nadia and Murshidabad. Spread over a land area of 8,640 square kilometers, the diocesan territory has cities such as Berhampur, Kalyani and Krishnagar.
Bengali and Santhali are the languages spoken in the diocese.
Augustinians and the Jesuits were the first Catholic missionaries to arrive in this region in the 17th century. They established a center at Berhampur in 1620. The first Catholic community was formed at Krishnagar by Portuguese Carmelite Father Thomas Zubiburu, who had come there in 1845 from Chittagong.
After Father Zibuburu left the place due to illness, the Milan Fathers (PIME) worked there from 1855. Krishnagar was erected into a Prefecture Apostolic on July 19, 1870, with Father Antony Marietti its first Prefect Apostolic. It became a diocese on September 1, 1886, with Father Frances Pozzi as its first bishop.
When Dinajpur diocese was bifurcated in 1928, the PIME fathers preferred to work in the new diocese, handing Krishnagar diocese to the Salesians.