ASIA/NEPAL - The Catholic Church in Nepal

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - The first Catholic priest to enter Nepal was the Portuguese Jesuit Father Juan Cabral, in 1628. In 1670 King Pratap Malla invited the Jesuits to settle in the country. In 1703 the Italian Capuchins carried out their work of evangelization in the central and eastern part of Nepal. The conquest of power by the Gorkha, in 1769, stopped evangelization for almost two centuries. Only in 1951, in fact, some Indian and American Jesuits managed to enter Nepal to teach, but without exercising pastoral ministry.
In 1968 the first Nepalese Jesuit was ordained a priest.
In 1973, strict measures are adopted by the authorities to prevent conversions to Christianity, and dozens of Christians were imprisoned without trial.
On 7 October 1983, the territory of Nepal, until then under the jurisdiction of the Indian Diocese of Pattna, is erected in Mission sui iuris, based in the capital Kathmandu, entrusted to the Jesuits. At the end of the eighties different religious congregations, male and female, open their homes in different parts of the country. On 8 November 1996 the mission in Nepal is raised to Apostolic Prefecture, and on 10 February 2007 to Apostolic Vicariate, with the first Apostolic Vicar Fr. Anthony Francis Sharma, SI, a native of Kathmandu. The present Apostolic Vicar, appointed on April 25, 2014, is His Exc. Mgr. Paul Simick, of the clergy of Darjeeling.
According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, Nepal has 29.129 million inhabitants, of whom 8,000 Catholics. There are 11 parishes, 60 mission stations, 1 Bishop, 18 diocesan priests and 58 religious, 13 religious brothers, 165 religious women. The church manages 17 assistant centers and charities, and 22 kindergartens, 28 primary schools and 23 junior and secondary schools. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 28/04/2015)