Karachi’s oldest parish turns 150

(Sept.21, 2011) In Pakistan, the oldest parish of Karachi marked a 150 years. More than a thousand people on September 18, attended the opening ceremony of celebrations commemorating 150th anniversary of the Sacred Heart parish. Archbishop Evarist Pinto of Karachi and eight priests celebrated the Eucharist last Sunday to open the jubilee year. The prelate later presided over the cutting of a cake and a fireworks display outside the Sacred Heart Church built in 1862. “This parish served as a gateway for the missionaries and faithful from different countries and cultures. You should overcome all the language barriers and form one family of faithful”, the Archbishop said in homily to the large number attending the ceremony. German, Spanish, Italian and American Jesuits started the mission in Karachi, which was then a part of the Bombay Archdiocese in India. Europeans and Anglo-Indians constituted the first parishioners.
Karachi became an archdiocese in 1950 and was divided to form Hyderabad diocese eight years later. It has a population of a little over 1,151,300 Catholics in 15 parishes. Sacred Heart Church was rebuilt twice after the wooden building caught fire in 1969 following a short circuit. Its century-old vessels were stolen last year but recovered four months later