SAN DIEGO — Bishop James Thoppil leads the Diocese of Kohima, located in northeastern India.
It’s a region populated by what the bishop describes as “a mosaic of tribes,” whose members are ethnically different from those found elsewhere in India.
The Kohima Diocese encompasses the entire Indian state of Nagaland and is inhabited by 17 major tribes, each with its own language and traditions. It is one of only three states in India with a Christian majority.
As strange as it might sound, the bishop said, the region was first evangelized by the American Baptist Church. When the ruling British government divided India into various regions, assigning each to a particular non-Catholic Christian denomination, Nagaland was awarded to the American Baptists, who sent missionaries as early as 1847.
By comparison, he said, the Catholic Church that he oversees is still “very young.”
The first Catholic missionary arrived in 1908, but his efforts didn’t have much success.
In late 1949, two religious sisters and a priest from Spain came to run a new hospital in Nagaland.
Bishop Thoppil said that the new arrivals were forbidden to evangelize, because the authorities didn’t want friction with the already established Baptist community. As a result, the first recorded Catholic baptism didn’t occur until December of 1952.
“Now, there are more than 63,000 Catholics in the whole diocese … and the greatest joy for us today definitely is the growth of the vocations to priesthood and religious life,” said Bishop Thoppil, who is originally from Kerala, in southwestern India, but was ordained to the priesthood in Nagaland. “I already have, from these indigenous tribes, more than 78 priests. … And there are more than 250 sisters. So, vocations are flourishing.”
With the Local Church operating more than 100 primary schools and about 30 secondary schools, he said, education represents “our main evangelizing means.”
“The school is not in itself an end, but rather a means to evangelization,” he said.
But even with the Church’s expansion in the Kohima Diocese, there are challenges.
Bishop Thoppil, who delivered a mission appeal at St. Brigid Parish in Pacific Beach over the summer, has two projects for which he is seeking financial assistance.
One is supporting a shelter where orphaned children will receive food, lodging and an education.
Another project is building new Catholic churches in the various villages throughout his diocese.
Bishop Thoppil explained that, when multiple families decide to become Catholic, he encourages them to construct a church building of their own.
“They make it with local materials like bamboo, leaves and wood, et cetera,” he said.
After several years, that first church structure will begin to decay, but the community will have proven in the interim its commitment to the faith.
At that “second phase of their faith life,” the bishop said, the diocese works to help build them a church. But the diocese includes more than 200 villages, he said, and each church comes with a price tag of about $20,000 to $30,000.
For these villages, a church building is of vital importance.
With priests only able to celebrate Mass there five or six times a year, Bishop Thoppil said, these churches are for more than Mass. On other Sundays, a catechist reads the Bible and teaches, and Catholics pray and sing religious songs together. They also gather for prayer throughout the week.
“The Baptist Church is the majority there; (the Catholics) are a tiny minority in the village,” explained Bishop Thoppil. “So, for them, to have a church is an identity.”
