Bishop Gerald Lobo Blesses commencement work of Udupi Diocesan Pastoral Center
Udupi: The blessing of the commencement work of the Udupi Diocesan Pastoral centre was held at Nayampalli near Ambagilu on Monday, November 27.
Rev Dr Gerald Isaac Lobo Bishop of Udupi Diocese blessed the Pastoral centre land during a very prayerful and faith evoking prayer Service. Later, the foundation stone of the project was laid symbolically.
In his message Bishop said, “Our diocese has completed six years but we are still not able to get any infrastructure facilities for the Diocese. Today with the help of our donor John B Cornelio we are going to build a Pastoral centre for the Diocese. The family of John B Cornelio has donated one acre of land to the diocese to build the patrol centre”. The Bishop also appreciated the generosity of the Cornelio family. The diocese has set up a building advisory committee to supervise the building work. Three Engineers who are well experienced will assist the diocese free of cost, they are Felix Albuquerque Mangaluru, Deepak D’Souza Mangaluru and Sandeep Almeida.
With the minimum collection of the funds, we are going to start the construction work of the pastoral centre. With strong faith in God and goodwill of the people of the diocese the basic project will be completed, he said.
On Behalf of the Diocese Bishop felicitated John B Cornelio who had donated one acre of land for the pastoral centre project.
Bishop also felicitated Architect Prakash Simons, Contractor Ujwal and Naveen Cardoza (Marian Infrastructure Mangaluru) on the occasion.
The Bishop expressed gratitude to the local Kakkunje ward municipality councillor Balakrishna Shetty and former councillor Shobha Kakkunje for their support.
In his welcome address, Diocese Vicar General Msgr Dr Baptist Menezes said that the long-awaited dream of our bishop is going to be realized soon. Six years ago Pope Benedict had announced our new diocese and given us Rev Dr Gerald Lobo as the first bishop of our diocese. After becoming the Bishop of Udupi he has worked tirelessly to provide the basic infrastructure for the new diocese. But till today we were not able to get a Pastoral Center for our diocese. Today with the help of John B Cornelio family our bishop’s dream is going to be a reality soon. We have strong faith in the Almighty God and goodwill of the people through which he hoped and believed that this project will be completed soon.
Diocesan Chancellor Rev Fr Stany B Lobo, Diocese Estate Manager Fr Henry Mascarenhas, assistant Fr Romeo Lewis, Liturgic commission director Fr Stephan D’Souza, Kundapur deanery head Fr Stany Tauro, Samada Director Fr Reginald Pinto, Diocese Youth director Fr Edwin D’Souza, president Dion D’Souza, Kolalgiri Church parish priest Fr Anil, Kalmadi Church parish priest Fr Alban D’Souza, Basrur Parish Priest Fr Charles and others were present.
Fr Valerian Mendonca Dean of Udupi Deanery delivered the Vote of thanks, Fr Harald Periera head of 18 commissions compered the prayer service.
