Pope names new bishop to Khulna Diocese in Bangladesh

(May 04, 2012) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday appointed a new bishop to the Diocese of Khulna in south-west Bangladesh. Fr. James Romen Boiragi who had been vicar general as well as administrator of Khulna is the new bishop. Born in 1955 in Holdibunia village in Khulna Diocese, Fr. Boriragi, who just turned 57 on Thursday, studied at Khulna’s St. Francis Xavier Minor Seminary and later at St. Joseph’s Intermediate Seminary of Dhaka, from where he also attended Notre Dame College. Following his philosophy and theology at the Holy Spirit National Major Seminary of Dhaka he was ordained priest on Jan 13, 1985. Since then he has held several responsibilities, including that of parish priest. In 1992 he was sent to Rome’s Pontifical Urban University from where he obtained a doctorate in Canon Law in 1996. Later he also served at the diocesan tribunal of Khulna. The seat of Khulna had been vacant since the transfer of Bishop Bejoy D’Cruze to Sylhet on Sept. 23, 2011. Khulna is one of the six suffragans of Bangladesh’s only Metropolitan Archdiocese of Dhaka. Some 33,000 Catholics of Khulna Diocese out of a total population of some 15 million, are spread across 11 parishes. They are served by 45 priests, 4 religious brothers and 100 sisters.