Vatican official to visit Bangladesh, India, Nepal

The Vatican official overseeing the Catholic Church’s evangelizing and missionary activities worldwide, ‎on Wednesday begins a 10-day visit Bangladesh, India and Nepal.   In the first leg of his visit, Cardinal ‎Fernando Filoni, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples will be in ‎Bangladesh Sept. 9-13, where he will visit Dhaka Archdiocese and Rajshahi Diocese.  On Sept. 13, he will fly to Kolkata city in India’s West Bengal state, where he will visit various places in the Archdiocese of Calcutta.  He will fly to Nepal, Sept. 15, and return to Rome on Sept. 19.

After his arrival in the capital Dhaka on Wednesday, he will fly northwest to Rajshahi  ‎Diocese, where the following day he will visit a shelter for the sick run by the ‎Missionaries of Charity of ‎Mother Teresa, a shelter for handicapped children and a home for the old and ‎sick nuns of Maria Bambina ‎Congregation.  On Friday, Cardinal Filoni will celebrate the silver jubilee ‎of Rajshahi  Diocese with a ‎solemn Mass and return to Dhaka.  On Saturday he will met the bishops, ‎superiors of religious orders and ‎lay representatives of Bangladesh.  In the evening he will celebrate ‎Mass at the Holy Rosary Church. ‎ Sunday morning he will celebrate Mass at Dhaka’s Holy Spirit Major ‎Seminary and leave for Kolkata ‎city in neighbouring India’s West Bengal state, where he will be the ‎guest of  Archbishop Thomas ‎D’Souza.

On Sept. 14, Cardinal Filoni will meet Priests, religious and lay ‎leaders of Bengal region in St. ‎Xavier’s College, in Kolkata, following which he will travel to the Morning Star ‎Regional Seminary in Barrackpore, ‎where he will address formators, seminarians and men and women ‎novices.  In the afternoon he will be ‎driven to the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Bandel, some 50 ‎kms north of Kolkata, where he will ‎celebrate Mass.  On Sept 15, the Vatican official will pay homage to ‎Blessed Mother Teresa with a ‎Mass at her tomb at the mother house of the Missionaries of Charity, and ‎later will fly to the ‎Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. 

In and around Kathmandu, Cardinal Filoni will meet with Caritas and several men and women’s religious communities who are engaged especially in rehabilitation and reconstruction work following the devastating April 25 earthquake and its aftershocks.   He will also meet government officials and hold an ecumenical meeting.