Catholic Church in India seeks to deepen its health care ties in Nation

(August 12, 2010) The Catholic Church in India is looking to expand its capacity in the health care field, said Cardinal Telesphore Toppo of Ranchi, former president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India. The Catholic Church, whose members make up only about 1.3 percent of India's population of more than 1 billion people, is already second only to the Indian government in the number of health care services it provides, with 5,450 health care facilities in the nation, 85 percent of them in rural areas. Cardinal Toppo visited the United States in early August to meet with leaders of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and with officials of Catholic Relief Services on health issues. He also met with representatives of Georgetown University, which had participated in two rounds of talks in India on how to build up the church's health care infrastructure. As a result a medical school will be established at a Catholic hospital in India next year, to be followed by the construction of a Catholic hospital near Ranchi, in northern India, in the cardinal's home state of Jharkhand. "I am a son of the soil," he noted with a smile. Agriculture is the mainstay for 80 percent of the rural population in Jharkhand. Beyond the school and the hospital, it is the long term objective that is the concern of Cardinal Toppo namely, what the Catholic Church in India is going to do in the field of health in the next 15 to 20 years.