Vatican City (BBN)-The Vatican official overseeing the Catholic Church’s evangelising and missionary activities worldwide will come to Bangladesh on a five day visit on Wednesday.
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, will stay in Bangladesh from September 9 to 13, reports Vatican Radio.
The visit is a part of a ten-day tour to Bangladesh, India and Nepal which will begin from Wednesday.
In the first leg of his visit, Cardinal Fernando Filoni will visit Dhaka Archdiocese and Rajshahi Diocese.
On September 13, he will fly to Kolkata in India’s West Bengal state, where he will visit various places in the Archdiocese of Calcutta.
He will fly to Nepal on September 15 and return to Rome on September 19.
After his arrival in the capital Dhaka on Wednesday, he will fly northwest to Rajshahi Diocese, where the following day he will visit a shelter for the sick run by the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa, a shelter for handicapped children and a home for the old and sick nuns of Maria Bambina Congregation.
On Friday, Cardinal Filoni will celebrate the silver jubilee of Rajshahi Diocese with a solemn Mass and return to Dhaka.
On Saturday he will met the bishops, superiors of religious orders and lay representatives of Bangladesh.
In the evening he will celebrate Mass at the Holy Rosary Church.
Sunday morning he will celebrate Mass at Dhaka’s Holy Spirit Major Seminary and leave for Kolkata city in neighbouring India’s West Bengal state, where he will be the guest of Archbishop Thomas D’Souza.
On September 14, Cardinal Filoni will meet Priests, religious and lay leaders of Bengal region in St. Xavier’s College, in Kolkata, following which he will travel to the Morning Star Regional Seminary in Barrackpore, where he will address formators, seminarians and men and women novices.
In the afternoon he will be driven to the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Bandel, some 50 kms north of Kolkata, where he will celebrate Mass.
On September 15, the Vatican official will pay homage to Blessed Mother Teresa with a Mass at her tomb at the mother house of the Missionaries of Charity, and later will fly to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.
In and around Kathmandu, Cardinal Filoni will meet with Caritas and several men and women’s religious communities who are engaged especially in rehabilitation and reconstruction work following the devastating April 25 earthquake and its aftershocks.
He will also meet government officials and hold an ecumenical meeting.
BBN/SS/AI