Cardinal Filoni releases Catholic Directory of India

February 18, 2013 - Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, released the Catholic Directory of India (CDI) on Friday, in the Indian capital New Delhi. Presenting the first copy of the directory to Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), Caridnal Filoni said the directory will help evangelization as it "has all the information about the dioceses in India. India is a unique country where all the Catholics of three rites live their faith and grow together peacefully in brotherhood, the Vatican official noted. The CBCI is the apex body of the Catholic Church in the country that comprises three rites – the Latin, which is the largest with 128 dioceses, and the Syro-Malabar and the Syro-Malankara Churches. Cardinal Filoni was Pope Benedict XVI’s special envoy to the golden jubilee of India famous Marian shrine Our Lady of Health at Vailankanni, in Tamil Nadu state, as well as the silver jubilee of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), the body of India’s Latin-rite bishops. During his Feb. 9 to 16 trip he visited Chennai, Vailankanni, Ranchi and New Delhi.
CDI 2013, which has 2,548 pages, comprises of three parts with first part being the general information about the universal church with the latest demographics and other statistics. The second part is about information about the 166 dioceses with maps, history, statistics and addresses and the third part is about conference of Religious India, societies of Apostolic life, secular institute and Pious Association.