Bangladesh city builds new church thanks to the donation of a recent convert, who converted to Catholicism.
Newsroom(11/04/2022 16:10, Gaudium Press) The faithful in the city of Chirgaou, Bangladesh, will be able to celebrate Holy Week inside the newly inaugurated church.
It was thanks to Solomon Hasda, a recent convert to Catholicism and a former police detective, that the church was built.
Solomon Hasda and his parents were animists, nature worshipers, but after the preaching of the missionaries of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions and some local missionaries, the family converted and embraced the Catholic Faith.
The former policeman, told how much he wished there was a church in his hometown and lamented when, a few months ago, one of his relatives died and people could not attend the funeral Mass because the village chapel is tiny.
It was then that the idea of building a church came to him. First, Hasda gave the local priest a first sum to start the construction and also offered a plot of land to build the building. Then the parish priest made a collection of gifts to finish the construction.
Hasda commented on the feeling he had after donating the land and the money for the construction: “In return, I received great joy and great peace from Jesus for giving our goods for the new church.”
The church was inaugurated by Bishop Sebastian Tudu, local bishop of the Dinajpur diocese. The old chapel could hold between 20 and 30 people, while the new structure can hold 200 people. The parish priest of Mariampur, Fr. Silas Murmu, praised Hasda’s attitude and said that he is an example for the faithful who often have a weak conviction about religion.
Bangladesh is a majority Muslim country, only 0.3% of the population is Christian. (FM)
With information from Fides
Compiled by Teresa Joseph
