Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarchate starts new pastoral mission for Indian Catholics

(August 30, 2010) Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal of Jerusalem has set up a special mission for the pastoral care of India’s migrant Catholics living in the territory of the patriarchate. Indian Catholics number some 2,000 residing mainly in the cities of Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Rameh, Tiberius and Haifa, engaged largely as care givers and domestics in homes. According to the Patriarchate, until now these Indians could attend Holy Mass every Saturday at St. Anthony’s Church in Jaffa, at the Holy Sepulchre in the Church of St. Saviour in Jerusalem and St Joseph's Church in Haifa. The patriarchate hopes that with the appointment of a chaplain and two assistants, all of them Franciscans from India, the faith life of the Indian Catholic workers will now be better organized. This new initiative for the pastoral care of Indian Catholics is the latest addition of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem that already has personal parishes and chaplaincies in the Holy Land for African, Austrian, Filipino, Polish and Romanian communities in English, German, French languages.