By Jose Kavi

New Delhi, Oct 27, 2022: The Society of St Paul, an international Catholic religious congregation for men, has a new leader for its India province that comprises Great Britain and Ireland, besides India.

The congregation’s superior general Father Dominic Soliman on October 24 appointed Father Joby Mathew as the Indian provincial during the council meeting.

Father Mathew succeeds Father Varghese Gnalian, who led the province since 2017, according to a circular from Brother Lorenzo Vezzani, secretary general of the congregation.

The new provincial has been serving as the director of Marketing and Sales of all St Paul’s publications when he was elected the provincial. He is also the treasure of the Indian Catholic Press Association (ICPA) since 2019.

Father Mathew says one of his priorities would be to make his congregation’s ministry and media apostolate visible and relevant to the Church and people in India.

“Although we have been in India since 1938 and actively engaged in media ministry we are not very visible in the Indian Church as a media congregation mainly because we have not been making ourselves visible and available,” Father Mathew told Matters India October 26.

Another priority for him is to read out to the young people of India, using “the enormous talents of the members of the province” and through its publications and media education ministry. “Greater efforts would be put in to engage with young people of the country to prepare them to use media responsibly,” he added.

Father Mathew was born October 14, 1976, at Uzhavoor, a village in Kerala’s Kottayam district. He belonged to St Pius X Church, Pius Mount under the Archdiocese of Kottayam.

After passing high school in 1991 from St Albert’s High School, Ernakulam, he joined the Society of St Paul in Bangalore. After the initial years of formation, in 1996 he went to Mumbai to do his graduation in Economics from St Andrew’s College, Bandra.

After graduation, he studied Philosophy from St Peter’s Pontifical Seminary, Bengaluru, and Theology from Jnanadeepa Institute of Philosophy and Theology, Pune. He was ordained a priest on January 28, 2006.

Immediately after his ordination, he was appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of The Teenager Today magazine, a post he held for five years.

During his time, the magazine underwent a facelift, from two-color to multi-color. With a contemporary look, the youth magazine has now more than 18,000 subscriptions.

He was also the chief event organizer of the magazine’s flagship youth program “The Teen of the Year,” a personality and talent pageant that brought together those aged between 13 to 17 from all over India for training in personality development, soft skills, interpersonal skills, and confidence building exercises.

In 2011, he left for the United States to complete “Master of Science in Publishing (print and digital)” from New York University.

After his studies, he returned to India and in August 2015 and was appointed as the general editor of our English language publications in Mumbai. Later in 2018, he was appointed as the director of Marketing and Sales of all our publications and continued to hold this office until now.

The congregation is generally known as a leader in the Catholic publishing in India. They have two imprints – St Paul’s for Catholics and Better Yourself Books for general public. They also run monthly magazines — The Teenager Today and Inspirational Quote — and a weekly leaflet – The Sunday Liturgy– for providing assistance in the celebration of the Sunday Mass.

Since 2010, the congregation manages two media colleges – St Paul’s Institute of Communication Education (SPICE) in Mumbai and St Paul’s College in Bengaluru.

The Society of St Paul now serves 28 countries across the globe. India became an independent province in 1965. It has communities in Allahabad, New Delhi, Jalandhar, Ranchi, Jorhat, Guwahati, Vijayawada, Eluru, Pune, Bengaluru, Kochi, Kozhikode, Chennai and Mumbai. Some 140 members are now engaged in media ministry in three countries.