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Diocese of Kumbakonam,
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OUR 2026 MISSION COOPERATIVE APPEAL
The Propagation of the Faith Office of our diocese has invited the Diocese of Kumbakonam, India to participate in the Mission Cooperative Appeal in our parish. Rev. Antony Muthu will speak about this on the weekend of June 20/21 .
Here is an overview of the missionary assets, activities, challenges and needs of the Diocese of Kumbakonam. This Diocese, established in 1899 in the State of Tamil Nadu, India, has an area of 7824 sq.km., a Catholic population of 213,000 (6% of the total population), 95 parishes and 610 missions, 198 diocesan and 74 religious priests, 620 nuns, 12 trained catechists and 590 untrained lay catechists, two Social Service Centres, 136 schools and 12 orphanages.
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Most pressing missionary needs of this mission-diocese are :
1) 4 more new parishes, each with a new church and rectory. Large parishes need to be divided into smaller parishes with a resident priest for better pastoral ministry. But the people are cannot this project due to their poverty.
2) Schools are our main means of ushering in progress at all levels. Education is a main means of evangelization and boosting the future prospects of the youth. In this context, the 136 Catholic schools and 12 orphanages in the missions need better facilities, building, infrastructure, educational and technical tools, children’s Bibles, a projector, catechetical materials in the form of videos, pictures, text-books and workbooks to improve the quality of religious and faith formation of Catholic and non-Catholic students in mission-schools.
3) Training 480 nuns and 4955 Catholic teachers in charge of catechetical, educational, medical and social ministries throughout this rural diocese, to educate the children and adults in the Catholic faith and to help the people, particularly the poor and the marginalized for their integral development, through annual seminars on Scripture and Catechetics and Motivation Courses and annual Retreats.
4) Projecting the healing touch and loving care of Jesus, the Divine Healer through our diocesan hospitals for lepers, home and school for hearing impaired children, HIV patients & their children and the many rural medical clinics, staffed by nuns.
5) Education of more seminarians since the diocese abounds in vocation to priesthood and religious life so that some could be sent as missionaries to missions abroad where there is a shortage of priests.
Note: Every year an average of 120 young men and women go from this diocese to other Missions and Religious Orders in India and abroad as missionaries. Now 28 priests of this diocese are missionaries abroad.
6) To educate 2500 very poor or orphan children, of single mothers and widows, and of addictive and abusive fathers by providing them with free board & lodge, in order to eradicate child labor. Such children are forced to tend cattle, work in hazardous conditions in factories, hotels or farms in order to eke out a living for the family.
7) To build low-cost homes with $6,000 for these poor families with elderly parents who do not have a proper home.
All the above mission projects are 80%dependent on MCP funds, Due to acute poverty of 65% of the Catholics, the diocese depends mostly on funds from annual Mission Appeal for the pastoral, educational, medical, and socio-economic emancipation of the marginalized and poor converts.
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Your Christ-like intervention and sacrifice of:
1) $30 will feed a poor child or an orphan for a month. ($300 annually).
2) $100 will enable a single mother or widow feed her family of 3 for two weeks.
3) $150 for monthly pay for a catechist.
4) $200 a tailoring machine for a poor uneducated woman to earn a living.
5) $300 will provide 4 goats to maintain a family of four.
6) $400 will pay for medical care for a leper.
7) $500 will educate a physically challenged child (annually).
8) $700 for family maintenance of a leprosy patient for a year.
9) $800 to fix the roof of a poor man’s hut.
10) $900 for a cow to feed a family of 6 with elderly parents and grandparents.
11) $1,000 for treatment and rehabilitation of a leper.
12) $2,000 to sponsor a seminarian for a year.
13) $6,000 for a low-cost home for a very poor family.
14) $30,000 will build a chapel in a poor mission that does not have one yet.
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Spiritual and Missionary Productivity of MCP:I was pastor (1980-1984) of St. Paul’s mission, at Kulumur, founded in 1935 by a holy priest and some dedicated nuns, with 18 sub-stations, spread over an area with a radius of 28 miles, located in a remote rural area of the diocese. Around midnight one day, Kumar, 27 years of age and a Hindu by birth, was rushed to my rectory when he was at the point of death due to cobra-bite on his shoulder while keeping night watch in his farm. After giving him a powerful, herbal anti-venom stand-by medicine, I had to rush him who already unconscious, to a hospital, 30 miles away, his brother holding him on my motor cycle, to give him anti-venom injection to be doubly sure of saving his life. There was every chance he would die on the way. If he were to die, this family in utter distress may rather blame me than the snake for his death. I started praying hard, saying, “Good Lord Save this young man from death today. The family had no one to help them. Hence this Hindu family came to me with great faith in their desperate situation, because I am a priest.” Miraculously he was saved. A year later, Hindu fundamentalists had the police arrest Kumar and 22 other adult Hindu men in order to prevent their conversion. They used to meet me on a regular basis in the evenings to discuss about their family and village problems. In this unreachably remote village, it was more of a counselling, infusing some hope and journeying together with those who were like boat without a rudder on a rough sea. Meanwhile the Holy Spirit had transformed Kumar to come forward with a bold defense through his powerful, personal and convincing witness, challenging the police officer, without counting the cost: “It is through the selfless ministry of the priests and the nuns during the past 50 years that this entire area is booming with life (in the jungle) through good education, medical care, moral standards, culture of life and civilization, all provided freely and joyfully by them. But for the Catholic Missionaries we would still live in the dark age. Whereas you, who seem to act as zealots of Hinduism and your government have never cared for us in our misery and distress. My family and I would have vanished into oblivion had the priest not intervened the right time to save me from death even though it was midnight. As for me and my family Jesus is the only Saviour and true God. Any amount of your vile tactics of physical extortion, deprivation of social and economic benefits and social castigation, cannot prevent me from being a Christian at heart, whether I become a member of the church or not due to your torture and coercive tactics. You have forcefully brought us here to intimidate us. This is not fair. Now set us free.”
Personal witness of Fr. M.S. Selva Raj:
His personal conviction and courageous witness, supported by 22 of his peers, saved our mission from further harassment. Undoubtedly this powerful endorsement from a group of Hindus delivered a rude shock to those who opposed our missionary work. In fact, I do believe the entire scenario, is all part of God’s great plan of bringing hope to those surrounded by darkness of all sorts. In truth such a manifold ministry through mission school, clinic and orphanage for boys and girls, mostly non-Christians, trying to mirror God’s love for the poor and forsaken, was made feasible mainly through Mission Appeal and Propagation of Faith in U.S. and Rome.
Yours sincerely in O.L.,
Appeal submitted by: Rev. M.S. Selva Raj, Mission Director, Diocese of Kumbakonam, India.
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