New Archbishop of Calcutta Begins Ministry Rooted in Service to Tribals and Bengali People

Archbishop Elias Frank begins his ministry in Calcutta with a message of unity and service, pledging to visit parishes and deepen ties with the Santal and Bengali communities

KOLKATA, West Bengal (Indian Catholic News) —The new Catholic archbishop of Calcutta, who has spent years ministering among the Santal tribal community and the Bengali people, began his service this week with a message of unity, humility and pastoral care for all.

In his September 20 pastoral letter published on the Calcutta Archdiocese official website, Archbishop Elias Frank, the tenth archbishop of the historic archdiocese, extended greetings of peace and blessings to the faithful as he took up his new mission.

“On this first day of my ministry as the tenth Archbishop of this great and historic Archdiocese of Calcutta, I extend to you my greetings of peace and my apostolic blessing,” he wrote.

The newly installed archbishop succeeds Archbishop Thomas D’Souza, who retired after leading the archdiocese for more than a decade. Archbishop Frank was previously the coadjutor bishop of Calcutta and officially took over the role following D’Souza’s retirement.

Reflecting on his personal journey, Archbishop Frank said his vocation was a response to a divine summons. “My coming to Bengal was not of my own choosing, but a response to a ‘personal call’ I heard within me in May 1979,” he recalled. “It was not my wish to come to Bengal, but my submission to a divine command.”

Since his ordination in 1993 at Our Lady of Happy Voyage Church in Howrah, he has devoted much of his priestly ministry to the Santal community and developed a deep bond with local Bengali culture. “I have spent most of my years while in India working among the Santal community, and I have become one with them at heart,” he wrote, adding that he had fallen in love with the Bengali language and culture.

In his letter, Archbishop Frank stressed the importance of unity within the Church, quoting St. Paul’s teaching to the Corinthians: “As the body is one, though it has many members, and all the members, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”

He pledged to focus his initial months on visiting parishes and religious institutions to better understand the needs of clergy and laypeople. “For the present, my priority will be to visit parishes and to come to know the priests and people,” he stated.

While acknowledging the vastness of the archdiocese and the many demands on his time, the archbishop said he would seek balance in his pastoral approach. “For the greater good of the Archdiocese, I will need to make choices — what to accept and what to decline, where to go and where not to go,” he wrote.

As he begins his ministry, Archbishop Frank’s message of unity, pastoral presence and love for the people of Bengal sets the tone for a new chapter in the archdiocese’s long and storied history.

The Archdiocese of Calcutta, established in 1834 as the Apostolic Vicariate of Bengal by Pope Gregory XVI and later renamed in 1850 by Pope Pius IX, remains one of India’s most prominent Catholic jurisdictions.