Kathmandu (AsiaNews) – Nepal’s Catholics no longer consider the Monarchy’s impositions on the Jesuits valid, now that the country is a secular State and that the king has lost his power. The bishop of Nepal speaks with AsiaNews about the situation of the Church and its’ initiatives.
The accord dates back to 1951 when the then king, Tribhuwan, invited the Society of Jesus to found the Saint Francis Xavier in Kathmandu, after almost two centuries of anti Christian prohibition. But the king only allowed education, forbidding any form of missionary activity and evangelization. A ban that was always respected by the Jesuits, who in 1984 founded a further three schools in the country. But now Nepal is no longer a Hindu monarchy and royal decrees are no longer law, so Catholics are once again free to carry out any type of activity.
I have always found myself drawn for no apparent reason to Catholic missionary activity in the former Communist nations of Asia.
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