THE JESUIT PERIOD (1919 – 1938)

The Patna Jesuits started working in Bhagalpur only from 1921, and their missionary efforts were directed mainly among the Santhals. Already in 1863 a Capuchin by the name of Raphael of Rieden, who divided his time between Bhagalpur and Purnea heard of the Santhals and visited them. Accounts of this pioneering work are scanty but we are told that he visited a place called Pulsa and another called Kusma in the Santhal Parganas, where he baptized a few people. His untimely death on August 16th, 1866 at the age of 43 brought the Santhal Mission to a premature end.

The Santhal Saga as far as the printed record is concerned, began with the November, 1927 Patna Mission letter, which told us in Father James Crean’s own words to the Editior, Fr. P. Sontag, “For the first time since Adam, Mass was celebrated in Simra, the centre of the new mission among the Santhals of the Bhagalpur area. The day was the 14th of September, the Feast of the Holy Cross. I designedly chose this day, hoping that the Crucified Christ being bodily present and lifted up among these simple, good-natured people, might draw their hearts to Himself”. After this first report on the Sanhtal Mission from “Santhal Jim” dozens of other articles and news items appeared in the subsequent issues of the PML and in the Patna Jesuit until its summer, 1971 issue, but none of them throw so much light on the beginning of the Santhal Apostolate as the following words from Fr. Sontag’s autobiography, “Go and Tell Them”. His Eminence, Cardinal Mooney, but at that time Archbishop Edward Mooney, visited Patna Mission in his capacity of Apostolic Delegate of India when I happened to be in the isolation ward of the Bettiah hospital with an attack of small pox. For a good hour His Grace sat at my beside. He had a plan. Adjacent to the Patna Mission on its eastern border was Santhal land; one civil district of the Santhal land was Godda sub-division, belonging to the Archdiocese of Calcutta. Here some 200,000 Santhals had, for some years already, been completely abandoned as a hopeless field for conversions. Three times in the course of sixty years the Belgian Jesuit Fathers had attempted to win these charming aborigines, for Christ……. In Godda sub-division they had procured several major properties, one the present Dak Bungalow with its huge compound. But all this was abandoned, as missionary attempts there were considered doomed to failure. Now the Patna Jesuits were to make a trial. His Grace, Msgr. Mooney himself, would take care of the requisite negotiations with the Archbishop of Calcutta and the Holy See. Thus Godda sub-division was detached from Calcutta and attached to Patna”.

“As Superior Regular of the Patna Mission I promised the Apostolic Delegate to do our utmost and we certainly did. We practically drained the other areas of the Patna Mission of men, to make an all-out attack on the newly acquired Santhal field. The following letter is a sample of my urgent appeals at that time, 1929”.

“Very Rev. and dear Father Provincial,

As early as the beginning of 1927, on the occasion of H. E. Mgr. Mooney’s visit to Patna, he had urged us to take up the Santhal Mission. When in March 1929, again he came to Patna for Bishop Bernard Sullivan’s consecration……., he urged this work still more, and even intimated that the Santhal Parganas might eventually be added to our Diocese and Mission”.

“In the meantime Fr. Crean’s Boarding School had grown to some 60 boys, who were all being instructed in the Faith and being baptized as soon as ready. And in nearly every case the family of the boys was also receiving instruction or at least willing to receive it and be baptized……… And a number of families were already catholic. All this was done with the full approval and encouraging of the Archbishop of Calcutta.”

“Then together with Fr. Creane in Bhagalpur District and Godda sub-division, and with Fr. H. Westropp in Monghyr district, I had a month’s tour of the Santhal field and got a pretty good idea of the situation. The possibilities in Godda sub-division then and there, as far as we could see, were as twenty to one against the possibilities in our own field. Indeed, an almost clean sweep might be made of Godda sub-division if we could strike AT ONCE and strike VIGOROUSLY. From all we know there was not even a remote chance of Calcutta going so…….”

“Mgr. Mooney took up the matter with His Grace of Calcutta. About a week before Christmas His Grace of Calcutta wrote to our Bishop, saying that he had instructed the Sicilian Father whom he was going to send into the Parganas to keep entirely out of Godda and Deoghar sub-divisions, and consequently we should take over this work entirely. He also indicated what steps should be taken for transferring these parts to Patna Diocese. The whole tone of his letter was very friendly. He seemed to realize that we were in position to meet the situation in a way that he could not even remotely approach.”

Fr. Sontag then concludes his letter with an earnest plea for more men from the Missourie Province, asking for at least “three of the present t ertian Fathers (or others) at the earliest date possible” and also saying that he is representing our case to Very Rev. Father General in a letter to him.

Meanwhile Fr. Sontag did not wait for more men from abroad. During his years as superior of the Patna Jesuits (1929-1936) he sent a total of 21 men to the Santhals or 14 priest, six scholastics, and one brother. Together with the 2 pioneer Santhal missionaries whom Fr. W. Eline appointed, Frs. Creane, and Westropp, and one appointed by Fr. Frank Loesch, Mr. W. R. Hussey, the following were sent to the Santhals by Fr. Sontag’s policy of AT ONCE and VIGOROUSLY. Fathers R. Bohn, R. Conway, G. Dertinger, B. Ernst, A. Forster, P. Frank, Gibbons, C. McAleese, C. Miller, Muller Petit, E. Scott, and F. Stoy and Messers Peter Angelo, C. Bonnot, Lyons, R. Mehren, J. Morrison and H. Watling and Brother Stephen Gerard.

Soon after Fr. Sontag began his policy of striking AT ONCE and VIGOROUSLY in the Santhal field, Bishop Sullivan asked the famous long-time superior of Bankipore’s St. Joseph’s Convent, Mother Medarda, to send IBMV Sisters to the Santhals, and from that time onward – from 1930 – a little company of hardy daughters of Mary Ward began evangelizing and teaching and healing the Santhals. They were Sisters Alypia, Bertilla, Canisia, Caritas, Geralda, Kunigundea, Martha and Prisca. One of these eight Sisters called herself “Santhal Auntie” in a few articles which she contributed to the PML wrote about the Sisters’ daily walks from one Santhal village to another as supercatechists, counselors and nurses, though the Sisters did not regard themselves super-anything except superfortunate in being chosen for the work. For 12 years (1930-1942) the Sisters laboured strenuously, and then the sacrifice had to be made of withdrawing from the scene of labour they loved so well and allowing others to reap the good seed they had sown. The sacrifice was indeed great, but the Sisters took solace in the thought that “Every good work is writ in the hands of God.”

As might be expected, the appointment of 24 Jesuits, and eight Sisters to the Santhals within a decade, along with “over 90 catechists” and numerous school teachers gave us numerous and good converts. But how many Santhals these were is difficult to compute, for a few Malto Pahariyas and even a few Doms and others were also converted by the Santhal missionaries.

“The burn out” policy characterized by Fr. Creane and other Santhal missionaries meant hard and heroic lives. Fr. Ernst Miller, Morrison, Kilian and Gibbons found it more efficient to cover more territory faster on motor cycle and Fr. Creane found a car better carrying loads of boys to his boarding school and Fr. Ed. Scott lived and moved and had his being in a covered bullock cart painted green on only one side, when he ran out paint. But they all, including the Sisters, did much of their missionary work by the simple process of walking in all weathers across roadless country in the vicinity of jungles filled with bears, leopards, tigers, snakes and scorpions. And when they arrived at some Santhal village and the ceremonial washing of feet was over they catechized, and sang and baptized. Then they ate rice as guests of the village and were given a corner in some mud hut, with straw for mattress for a nights’ rest. Then in the morning the hut became a chapel where confession were heard, Mass said and communion given. Many of the PML articles speak of this feature of the Santhal Mission, the inescapable contrast which the Santhals noticed between the good God of whom the missionaries spoke and of the terrifying demon (Bonga) whom pagan Santhals worshipped in fear. At the boys boarding school (St. Stanislaus) and the girls boarding school (St. Mary’s) in Bhagalpur, and later in Gokhla, this contrast between Christianity and paganism won over hundreds of Santhal children as fast as they could learn to sing the hymns, the prayers and the catechism. Then the children returned to their villages during school vacations and marched around singing about their new-found religion so joyously that they “converted even the unconvertible”.

Then in the midst of all this joy there was unexpected sorrows. One of these was the death of a Santhal pioneer Fr. Raymond Conway S.J. at Bhagalpur on October 15, 1932. Fr. Cornway, the first American Jesuit to die in Patna Mission came to India in 1926 and after his ordination and tertianship worked in Bettiah and Ghyree missions and was later transferred to Bhagalpur. Applying himself with characteristic vigour to his new field, he soon had a thriving Christian community established there. Then typhoid struck him down and when word was sent to a neighbouring missionary, Fr. Cornway was brought by bullock cart and car to the nearest hospital, some 90 miles away in Bhagalpur. There after five hours of unconsciousness he died and was buried just a few feet from the tabernacle of the little church where so many Santhals received their First Communion, some perhaps from his own hands…….

So the work continued with great success and the Patna Jesuits were sorry to leave Bhagalpur in 1938 when the TOR Franciscans first arrived there to take over the Mission. Fr. Crean’s announcement of the transfer in the March-April 1939 PML, tells us there were then more than 8500 catholics in the four central stations in the Parganas. Gokhla with 2650, Poreyahat with 2300, Godda with 2303 and Gajhi with 1300. Each of these main stations has its sub-stations and chapels. The entire district is checkered with some 50 village schools. Two large boarding schools at Gokhla, one of them for boys, and the other for girls, are fed from the whole territory. A number of boys who finished the Gokhla M.E. School were sent to Krist Raja School at Bettiah.

In other words, the Santhal Saga of 1927-1938 began with no Santhal catholics ended with 8633 catholic Santhals, Malto Paharias and so on in the Patna Diocese of whom 7333 were transferred to what is now the Bhagalpur Diocese leaving 1300 to Patna Diocese in the vicinity of Gajhi, Chakai.

The 10 Jesuits actually in the Santhal Parganas Mission at the time of the arrival of the Franciscans were Fathers Creane at Bhagalpur, Stoy, Gibbons and McAleese at Poreyahat, Ernst at Godda, and Frank, Bohn, and Brennen and Mr. Goveas and Bro. Stephen at Gokhla. The Mission Directory, in March-April, 1943 shows only two Jesuits left in the Parganas, Fr. Morrison at Poreyahat and Fr. Ernst at Godda. In 1945 Fr. Ernst was still in Godda but by 1946 all the Jesuits were withdrawn except Fr. Miller at Chakai.

It will be good to remember that the pioneer missionaries had to go on foot, or use a bicycle or a horse to move about areas without proper roads, live on ordinary rice and dal and occasionally sleep on the floor spread with straw or mat to keep warm. Buildings were mostly made of mud thatched with tiles. To get good water to drink was a luxury subject to common malaria, they went about doing God’s work with enthusiasm. “AMDG” For the Greater Glory of God was their watch word.