(ANS – Rome) – During the Intermediate Plenary Session the Rector Major, in agreement with his Council appointed the  new  Superior of the India-Guwahati Province, Fr Thomas Vattathara and the first Superior of the new Province of India-Silchar, Fr George Maliekal.

Fr Vattathara, known as  Fr V.M. Thomas, was born  at Kongorpilly, in the State of Kerala, India, on 18 February 1951. He entered the novitiate at  Sunnyside, Shillong in 1968. He made his perpetual profession in 1975 and was ordained priest 28 December 1978.

He was Rector of Don Bosco in Guwahati between 1985 and 1988 and of Don Bosco Institute in Kharguli since 2005 until the present. In the Guwahati Province he was a  Councillor between 1988 and 1990 and Delegate for Youth Ministry and for Groups and Movements between 2003 and 2006. He has animated and trained many young people in the whole of  north-east India and been a director of religious and lay people. He has also begun various projects for needy young people in  the State of Assam. In 2007, after having asked for the intercession of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, he was cured in an inexplicable manner of a kidney stone and this has also been cited in pursuance of her cause for beatification and canonisation.

Fr George Maliekal is the first Superior of the new “Blessed John Paul II” Province of India-Silchar created by the division of the Guwahati Province. He was born in the village of Arakulam, also in the State of Kerala, on 13 June 1958. He has been a Salesian since 1978 and was ordained a priest in 1986 at Muttuchira.

He obtained a Doctorate in Church History from the Gregorian University in Rome and speaks Italian, English, Hindi and Khasi languages. In addition to having served for several years as parish priest in the missions of Jirikinding and Sojong he was also Rector of some important Salesian houses, such as the Don Bosco School at Tura (in 1996 and 1997) and the Sacred Heart Theologate in Shillong (between 2005 and 2011). At present, as well as  teaching in the Theologate in Shillong, he is assistant parish priest in the Rambrai community.

Published 05/04/2012