Mothurapur (eng)

Mothurapur

The men found jobs in the railway line Ishurdi-Sirajganj. (Once again the Railways of North Bengal show their connection with the spreading of the Gospel). The zone was marshy, covered with jungle and infested with savage packs of jungle pigs. The animals, besides spoiling standing crops, had a reputation of being vicious, and everyone was afraid of them, most of all the Baptist pastor who was visiting the faithful occasionally from Dhaka. After one last frightful encounter with the beasts, the Pastor gave an ultimatum to his congregation : either they exterminate the pigs or he would be compelled to stop visiting them.

No one felt fit for the job, but the Pastor's cook came up with a proposal: he had a friend who would just relish hunting the pigs down. This man was Paul Gomes, commonly called Polu Shikari, a Catholic, also from Rangamatia. Polu was a redoubtable hunter and readily agreed to make the long trip for the hunting safari. Upon arrival, he loved the place at first sight for everything it had to offer. Very soon he decided to settle down for another reason: the local Zaminder had made a promise that he would give a bigha of land for every pig tail anyone would bring to him. In no time Polu and some friends who also arrived on his footsteps became owners of good properties.

All things were right but one. They felt like lost sheep. Apparently no diocese of Bengal included the district of Pabna on its map. They sent letters here and there in order to get a priest visiting them, but got no answer. At last they concluded one of those letters by saying: "If no priest is coming to visit us, all right; that means that we shall have to join the Baptist Church!" The trick worked the miracle. On return mail, a missionary of the Holy Cross, Fr. T. J. Crowley, CSC arrived all the way from Dhaka to start his pastoral activity in the area. The date was June 29, 1925.

The priest could not help being conquered by the beauty of the place and by the sincere faith of the pioneers. And when he asked for a plot where to build a chapel, Polu was quick in offering the very plot he had earned with the tail of the first pig he had hunted down. On that same plot, in Mouza Mathurapur, now stands a beautiful parish center with a semicircular Church dedicated to Saint Rita.

Fr. Crowley, being the Vicar General of the diocese of Dhaka, was a busy man. All the same, this did not prevent him from visiting Mathurapur on a regular basis or sending some other priest in his place. When in 1929 he became the sixth bishop of Dhaka, he requested Fr. P. Carnevale, PIME to offer his pastoral services to those Catholics. Fr. Carnevale complied (firstly from Andharkota and then from Bonpara) up to the year 1947, when a parish was created and Fr. Dominic Rozario, CSC came to take charge of it first from Pabna town, then from Lautia and lastly taking residence in Mathurapur. Another priest who worked for a long time in the parish of Mathurapur was Fr. Anthony Gomes. In 1976, the parish was transferred to the diocese of Dinajpur, with Fr. E. Viganò, PIME as its ever-beloved pastor.

It is to be noted that in 1947 pastoral activity was started in Phoiljana, which later become a very extensive parish sub-center, about six km south of Mathurapur.