By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, June 29, 2023: Pope Francis on June 29 appointed Father Benny Varghese Edathattel as the second bishop of Itanagar, one of the two Catholic dioceses in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, once a forbidden land for Christians.
The Pope had also accepted the resignation of Bishop John Thomas Kattrukudiyil, the first prelate of the remote diocese, who has crossed 75, the mandatory year for bishops to resign, according to a press release from the Conference of Catholic Bishops in India.
Bishop Kattrukudiyil served the diocese since 2005. Earlier, he was the bishop of Diphu in neighboring Assam state for 11 years from 1994.
The bishop-elect is currently the executive secretary of the Catechetical Commission of the Northeastern Regional Bishops’ Council.
He was born on April 22, 1970, at Njayappilly, in the Syro-Malabar eparchy of Kothamangalam, in the southern Indian state of Kerala. He attended the Good Shepherd minor seminary in Dimapur, then studied philosophy at the Salesian College in Dimapur, commercial capital of Nagaland, and theology at the Oriens Theological College in Shillong, capital of Meghalaya. He was ordained a priest on April 19, 1999, for the diocese of Kohima.
He began his priestly ministry serving as the assistant parish priest of St. Thomas Church and vice-principal of St. John School, Tuensang in Nagaland for three years.
He was then appointed the dean of studies and administrator of St. Xavier’s Seminary and director of the Agricultural Training cum Production Centre, Jalukie, a post he held for two years.
He then went for studies for the Diploma in Pastoral Ministry and the Master in Pastoral Theology with specialization in Small Christian Communities at the East Asian Pastoral Institute, in Manila. In the Philippines, he served as the assistant parish priest of Our Lady of the Abandoned, in Marikina during 2004-2007.
On his return, he was appointed the secretary of the Bishop of Kohima and diocesan coordinator of the Small Christian Communities for four years until 2011. At the same time, he studied Master in History at Gauhati University.
In 2011 he became the parish priest of St. Peter’s, in Kiphire, Nagaland, for five years. He used his time to study Bachelor of Education at the Mirza Teachers’ Training College, Assam. He was appointed administrator of St. Joseph’s College in Jakhama and visiting professor at Oriens Theological College, Shillong (2016-2020).
Since 2021, he has served as the parish priest of the St. Joseph’s Center in Songlhuh.
The diocese of Itanagar was erected on December 7, 2005, by bifurcating the Tezpur diocese in Assam. The other diocese in the state is Miao that covers its eastern region.
The diocese of Itanagar includes 10 civil districts of Arunachal Pradesh. It borders to the north on China, a south on the mother diocese of Tezpur, to the east on the new diocese of Miao and to the west on Bhutan.
The diocese has 90,822 Catholics; 52 parishes; 27 diocesan priests; 105 religious priests and 170 religious sisters. Adi, Aka, Apatani, Hill Miri, Monpa, Nyshi, and Tagin are the languages spoken in the diocese.
Catholicism entered Arunachal Pradesh through young people from the state who were attracted to the faith while studying in the Salesian schools in Assam and other states in the region.
Arunachal Pradesh was then a prohibited land for Christianity and its missionaries. The early Catholics and catechists resisted all prohibitions and persecutions to hold on to their faith and proclaimed it in the villages.
The seed of faith took root guided by some great missionaries such as Benedictine Brother Prem Bhai, known as the “apostle of Arunachal Pradesh.” His missionary spirit took him beyond all borders and into every village in West Arunachal Pradesh.