Archbishop Dominic Jala on Shillong Archdiocese, part 2

Last week, we brought you the first part of an interview on India’s Shillong Archdiocese, where Archbishop Dominic Jala spoke about the various aspects of his archdiocese as well as of the 7 states of North East India, known as the Seven Sisters, where through decades, 15 dioceses have come up from the one Archdiocese of Shillong.  Arch. Jala said that the German Salvatorians who came to NE region in 1890 handed over the mission to the Jesuits  after some 25 years, who in turn handed it to Salesians in 1922, and never looked back.  From some 5000 Catholics in 1922, the NE region is home to over 1 million Catholics today.  Meghalaya, whose capital is Shillong, is a plateau, comprising the Khasi, Garo and Jaintia hills.  The Khasi people, to which Archbishop Jala belongs, are the majority ethnic group in Meghalaya, followed  by the Garos and the Jaintias.  Shillong Archdiocese has some 268,000 Catholics.  Together with other Protestant Churches, Christians make up some 70% percent of Meghalaya’s a little over 3 million population.  The Catholic Church’s main thrust there is education and healthcare.    Farming is the mainstay of the people in the hilly region, and there is a flow of people from the rural side to the urban areas in search of work.  Hence the Catholic Church is fighting urban poverty by targeting uneducated youth, providing them night classes and short-course vocational training.   Archbishop Jala, who is a Salesian, lamented corruption, bureaucracy and government apathy that prevent establishment of industries in the hilly state, because of which the youth are migrating elsewhere for better prospects.   The Archbishop noted that the Salesians are doing a lot for young men and women to make them self-sufficient.   He also noted that with the help of Caritas India and the government, they are trying to tackle the silent menace of tuberculosis in the North East region, including in Meghalaya. 

Well, today, in the final part of this interview, we asked Archbishop Dominic Jala about some of the challenges that Catholic families in Meghalaya state face, apart from problems of poverty and migration. 

Listen: