A Xaverian missionary's experience in Bangladesh, - part 2

Bangladesh’s over 156 million population is overwhelmingly Muslim. While some 88% of the people profess Islam, Christians are a tiny minority.  Catholics who number over 350 thousand form a mere 0.2 percent of the country’s population.   Catholicism came to the region in the 16th century with the arrival of Portuguese traders and along with them also missionaries.  The first church in Bangladesh was built by Portuguese Jesuits  in 1599 at Chandecan (also called Iswaripur or old Jessore) near Kaliganj in the Sunderbans of present Satkhira district.

The Xaverian Missionaries are among several foreign missionary congregations working in Bangladesh.  Fr. Marcello Storgato, is a 73-year old Rome-born Xaverian missionary, who worked in Bangladesh for 21 years from 1972 until 1994 when he was called to serve in the Xaverian media in Brescia, Italy.  In an interview with him, we came to know a lot about the Xaverian mission in Bangladesh. Last week, in the first part of this interview, he spoke about how he came to join the Xaverian Missionaries, a congregation founded in 1895 by Italian St. Guido Conforti. Besides explaining the Xaverian charism, he also spoke about the values he learnt from Bangladeshis, such as  praying spontaneously from the heart, to be happy with little and sharing it with others and winning the appreciation of Muslims.  Well today, Fr. Storgato begins the final part of this interview narrating the Xaverian ministries in Bangladesh.  

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