By Jose Kalapura
Patna, August 11, 2026: Patna Church mourned veteran evangelist Sadhu Shilanand, whose five decades of ministry deepened Catholic faith and drew 800 mourners to his August 9 funeral.
“Patna Church lost a veteran evangelist, in the passing away of Sadhu Shilanand. For the past five decades, he has been deepening the faith of the Catholics and proclaiming the Gospel to hundreds of thousands of people in central Bihar, under the dioceses of Patna and Buxar,” said Patna’s Archbishop Sebastian Kallupura.
“There is no parish in central Bihar whose members did not know Sadhu Shilanand,” the archbishop said at the funeral.
Sadhu Shilanand died August 6. He was 86.
“Jesuit Brother Sylvester D’Souza (1940-2026), known by his adopted name, Sadhu Shilanand, from Mangalore, had joined Patna Jesuit Province in 1961 and has been engaged in inculturated evangelization for 55 years in Bihar’s 60 parishes,” said Father Vimal Kishore, Provincial Superior of Patna Jesuits in his funeral address.
“Throughout his life he was engaged in deepening the faith of the Catholics in diverse ways; he was one of the founders of Patna’s charismatic movement in early 1990s; he initiated opening a unit of the pious association in Patna, Couples for Christ, and creatively engaged in proclaiming the Gospel in local languages and idioms,” Father Kishore said.
“He took the Bible to the people in people’s language,” said lay leader Gabriel John in his condolence note at the funeral.
“He inspired the founding of the lay movement, Masihi Satsang Mandali (MSM-Christian Devotional Group), by lay evangelist Pyare Lal and remained its adviser since 1997,” he added.
The MSM was founded at Buxar parish, now the headquarters of the Buxar Diocese. Later its office was shifted to Patna town from where teams of preachers went to preach in other parts of Bihar. The 10 founding members of MSM were selected from different village parishes in Patna and Buxar dioceses.
“The MSM had formed village units in 110 villages and trained some 300 rural animators. It has units in practically all the 60 parishes of Patna and Buxar dioceses,” noted Father Joseph Velamkunnel, Shilanand’s biographer.
“When the traditional evengelisation methods did not work he innovated an alternative method of evangelization using the dialects Bhojpuri and Magahi. The MSM always emphasized, ‘empower the laity to proclaim the Gospel in the culture of Bihar,’ said Father Pradeep Kumar, in his funeral oration.
The MSM was involved in multiple means of evangelization by translating the old famous Isaayan (Life of Christ in folklore form in Hindustani, like the Hindu epic poem Ramayan) to Bhojpuri and Magahi. Thousands of copies of this book were made available in some 60 urban and rural parishes in central Bihar.
Pyare Lal had translated not only Isaayan, but also parts of the Old Testament and the Gospels, Mattersindia learned.
The MSM got composed some 500 hymns based on Isaayan and proclaimed the Gospel through singing by its troupes in parishes, Catholic hostels and in villages.
The Sadhuji also initiated a series of inculturated Christian devotional singing called Katha Prasang, Ish-putra-putriyon ka Manav Satsang, after the example of devotional Hindu singing.
Expanding Christian proclamation of the Gospel to other religious groups he initiated celebration of inculturated celebration of the Hindu festival Vishwakarma Puja (Festival of God of Creation), in a spirit of dialogue. The Sadhu focused “God is the creator of all human beings and when man creates, he carries the work of God,” said Velamkunnel.
“He also enlisted collaboration of the Catholic women’s organization called Mahila Sangh in his efforts to reach out to village women,” he said.
On asking the use of media of communication, Pyare Lal said, “earlier we used traditional musical instruments like harmonium, table, other drums, flute, etc. and presented Isaayan for physical gatherings in parishes, hostels and villages.”
“Later, realizing the need of modernization, and to reach out to wider audiences in their locales, the Sadhuji produced devotional hyms, pravachans (religious discourses), keertans (rhythmic devotional hymns) through 100 audio cassettes, scores of videos and still later through recorded chips,” said Pyare Lal, a folk musician.
Even when he was very old, he still innovated to produce hundreds of YouTube videos and uploaded them,” he told Mattersindia.
“In all the endeavours of MSM the Sadhuji was not only the inspirer, but also found ways to financially support its activities through the munificence of funding agencies or his own benefactors. His zeal for evangelization was undying, so people supported him,” said Paschal Peter who had freely offered his house in Patna to MSM for 12 years.
“In order to strengthen the faith of the converted Catholics in Bihar, the Sadhu used to conduct pilgrimage tours to the famous Catholic shrines in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Mumbai and arranged hospitality to the pilgrims with families or churches, he said.
“He was a great supporter of the laity in Bihar: Patna Church has lost a great shepherd,” John said.