Nepal’s oldest Jesuit missionary dies

By Matters India Report

Kathmandu, Jan 15, 2023: Jesuit Father Casper J Miller, the oldest missionary who brought Christianity to Nepal’s Tamang tribals and taught hundreds of Nepali students, died on January 15 at Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, Kathmandu, capital of Nepal. He was 90.

A message from the Nepal Jesuit Society says Father Miller, who fondly called “Fr Cap” had no major illness. “In his ripe old age, after being confined to bed for a little over a month St Xavier’s Jesuit Community, Jawalakhel … he peacefully breathed his last on January 15, 2023, at 3 pm,” the message adds.

His funeral is scheduled at 11:30 am on January 16 at Assumption Church, Dhobighat in Kathmandu. “After the funeral Mass, his mortal remains will be consigned to flame at Teku,” the message says.

The Jesuits have made arrangements at St Xavier’s Jesuit Residence, Jawalakhel, for his students, friends and wellwishers to pay their homage until 11 am on January 16.

Father Miller was born on December 13, 1933, at Cleveland in the United States’ Ohio state. He joined the Jesuits on September 2, 1951 and was ordained a priest on March 29, 1964,

He lived and worked in Nepal from 1958 until his death.

Father Miller “was a saintly man .He did everything a Catholic missionary should. May be he was the most evangelical one too,” says Chirendra Satyal, one of his former students some 50 years ago.

According Satyal, Father Miller took his vows of poverty to the limit. “He did his research for Nepal’s Tribhuwan University resulting in two bestselling books “Faith-healers in the Himalaya” (for his MA) and “Decision Making in Village Nepal” (doctorate). He lived in really challenging conditions in various very remote villages for this research,” Satyal told Matters India.

“He was my principal in St Xavier’s School in Godavari in the early 1970s. He will be greatly missed by the Tamang tribals of Dhading district where he pioneered the entry of Catholicism.”

Satyal says only one “white” missionary remains in Nepal now — American Jesuit Father Gregory Sharkey, who lives in Kathmandu” as a Buddhist research scholar.