DINAJPUR, Diocese of. - Erected by apostolic brief of 25 May 1927 by dismemberment of the diocese of Krishnagar (India), it has an area of 45,383 sq. km. and a population of about 10 million inhabitants, of whom 33 thousand are Catholics, 23,000 Protestants, six and a half million Muslims and more than 3 million pagans.
It is entrusted to the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions of Milan. Twenty-three Italian priests and 9 native priests work there, together with 367 catechists and a fair number of foreign and native sisters. It is divided into 15 districts, 4 rural vicariates, 15 quasi-parishes, 15 primary stations and 268 secondary ones; there are 6 churches and 195 chapels. The elementary schools are attended by about 5,000 pupils, the middle schools by about a thousand young people and the vocational schools by 150. The diocese also possesses 8 orphanages with a total of 211 orphans, a poorhouse, a leper asylum and a rural bank. There is no seminary, but some young men prepare for the priesthood in the seminaries of the neighboring dioceses. The diocese of D. is a suffragan of Calcutta and, after the political division of India, a large part of its territory, including the episcopal city, extends into East Pakistan, while the other part is situated in India. Ecclesiastically it borders on the dioceses of Patna, Krishnagar, Dacca, Shillong and the apostolic prefecture of Sikkim.
Bibliography2 works
Pompeo Borgna