Madras [Chennai], Archdiocese of

MADRAS [CHENNAI], Archdiocese of. - It is located in the south-eastern part of India, entrusted to the Pious Society of Salesians of St. John Bosco. It was first part of the diocese of St. Thomas of Meliapore, detached in 1606 from the archdiocese of Goa. The first attempts at evangelizing the Telugu in Chandragiri and Vellore date back to the early 17th century, through the work of two Italian Jesuits, Fr. Francesco Ricci (1601) and Antonio Rubino (1607), later martyred in Japan. The kingdoms of Vellore and Golconda, with half of that of Gingi, subsequently came to form, from 1640 to 1688, the mission of Carnate, which was detached from the mission of Madura in 1704 and entrusted to the Jesuits expelled from Siam. Other religious Orders also contributed to the development of the mission, such as the Theatines, the Carmelites and the Capuchins.

After the suppression of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit missionaries, almost all of whom remained in their posts, were affiliated, for the most part, to the Seminary of Foreign Missions of Paris, which was placed in charge of the said mission in 1776. Various vicissitudes and a jurisdictional conflict with the Ordinary of Goa eventually prompted an apostolic visitation from the S. Congregation of Propaganda, after which an apostolic vicariate was created in M. in 1831, then definitively erected on 25 Apr. 1834 and entrusted to the Hermits of St. Augustine, to whom Irish secular priests were added. In 1875 some missionaries of the Mill Hill Society arrived among the Telugu. The apostolic vicariate, in Sept. 1886, was elevated to the archdiocese of M., constituted a metropolitan see with the suffragans of Vizagapatam and Hyderabad, on 7 June 1887. The territory underwent various changes of boundaries, especially due to the erection of new missionary circumscriptions.

The diocese currently has 7 suffragan dioceses: Bellary, Bezwada, Cuttack, Guntur, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Nellore, Vizagapatam, apostolic prefecture of Jabalpur. It borders on St. Thomas of Meliapore, Pondicherry, Salem, Bangalore and Nellore. Over an area of 16,340 sq km, it counts 4,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 70,040 are Catholics, distributed in 41 parishes and more than 1,800 stations, primary and secondary, served by 38 diocesan priests and 66 religious, assisted by 7 male religious congregations and 19 female ones. It has 93 educational institutions (among them 4 vocational schools and one normal school) and 18 charitable and welfare institutions (Ann. Pont., 1951, p. 259).

It also publishes newspapers and periodicals in English and in Tamil. The pious associations and those of Catholic Action are flourishing.

Pompeo Borgna