RANCHI, Diocese of. - More often called the mission of Chota Nagpur from the name of one of its principal regions, it was detached from the archdiocese of Calcutta (India), of which it is a suffragan, erected as a diocese on 25 May 1927 and entrusted to the Jesuits.
Situated in north-eastern India west of Calcutta, it embraces the territory of three States, namely Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, with an area of 107,488 sq. km. and a population of about 8 million inhabitants, of whom 3,525,000 are Hindus, 3,542,000 animists, 400,000 Muslims, 160,000 Protestants. Catholics number 354,230, catechumens 17,250. It has 51 quasi-parishes or districts and more than 1000 secondary stations. The priests number 172: 124 foreign and 48 Indian; the nuns 240: 66 foreign and 174 Indian. There is a major and a minor Seminary. The catechists number 592. Instruction is given in 841 elementary schools, 51 middle schools, 15 high schools, 2 university colleges, 18 vocational schools, 6 normal schools. There are also 6 hospitals, 32 dispensaries and a printing press, where, among other things, two monthly periodicals with a fair circulation are published. Various pious associations, of Catholic Action, and the Marian congregations flourish.
About 70 years ago there were barely 2 thousand Catholics. The one who gave the impetus to the conversion movement was Fr. Lievens, a Belgian Jesuit, who, in 8 years, won 60 thousand individuals to the Church. He and his confrere Fr. Hoffman, by founding in 1909 the Chotanagpur Catholic Cooperative Credit Society, succeeded in raising the economic level of the aborigines. Besides the aforementioned cooperative, which currently gathers 23 thousand heads of families in 700 groups, there operates a Catholic Labour Bureau, a kind of employment office, and a Grains Bank with many branches, capable of supplying rice to the farmers even in times of famine and scarcity.
On 14 June 1951 a zone was detached from it to form in part the diocese of Sambalpur (v.) and on 13 Dec. 1951 another zone for the erection of the diocese of Raigarh-Ambikapur. On the same date the diocese of R. passed to the indigenous clergy.
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Pompeo Borgna