Native Jesuit appointed bishop in Nepal

Cheers rang out at Kathmandu's Assumption Church on the morning of February 10, when it was announced at the main weekend Mass that Pope Benedict XVI had raised the local Church to the status of a vicariate and appointed Monsignor Anthony Sharma SJ as bishop.

The 69-year-old Jesuit, who has been serving as apostolic prefect, has headed the Catholic Church in Nepal since 1984, the year after it was made a sui iuris (self-governing) mission.  Bishop-elect Sharma was the first ethnic Nepalese to be ordained a Jesuit priest, when he was 30.  He was born in Kathmandu of Hindu parents, who remained Hindus until their deaths.  Father Lawrence Maniyar, Jesuit regional superior for Nepal, said he is happy not only 'because (Fr Sharma) is a Jesuit but because it is so good to have someone so mature and someone who knows the country so well - a better person could not have been appointed.'

The modern Catholic presence in Nepal began in the 1950s, when Jesuits from India established a school in Kathmandu.  In October 1983, Pope John Paul II separated the territory of Nepal from Patna diocese in India and six months later appointed Monsignor Sharma the mission's first ecclesiastical superior.  In 1997, the late pope elevated the mission to an apostolic prefecture and its head to apostolic prefect.  The elevation to a vicariate, headed by a bishop, reflects continued organizational growth in the local Church.  According to the Vatican, the new Apostolic Vicariate of Nepal has 6,681 Catholics.  Its five parishes, two subparishes, six mission stations and 22 substations are served by 11 diocesan and 40 Religious priests.  In May last year the national parliament approved measures that converted Nepal, until then the world's only Hindu nation, into a secular state.  About 80 percent of Nepal's people are Hindus, and most of the rest are Buddhists.