Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, is visiting Rajshahi, a city of 840,000 in western Bangladesh where the Catholic faith has spread among the adivasi (aboriginal) population.

The Fides news agency reported that the “first presence” of Catholics in the city occurred less than 40 years ago, when three religious sisters traveled there to care for the sick and planted “the first seeds of faith in a rather hostile context.”

The Diocese of Rajshahi was established in 1990, and today there are 64,000 Catholics and 19 parishes, each with a primary school.

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