Panaji: Goa Church on Saturday announced that it would collect donations to help earthquake victims in Nepal.
Archbishop of Goa and Daman Fr Filipe Neri Ferrao has asked all the 180-odd churches in the state to make announcements during the regular masses for the parishioners to contribute for the fund.
"We are all aware of the devastating earthquake that hit our neighbouring country of Nepal a week ago, leaving presumably some ten thousand dead and several thousands injured, not to speak of the unprecedented loss of property," the Archbishop said in a circular.
A special account has been opened in a nationalised bank for the same in Panaji.
"The extent of the devastation, which has flattened thousands of villages, will not be known until the end of the ongoing search and rescue operations. Huge populations are rendered homeless and are living like refugees and the outbreak of an epidemic seems to be imminent," he said.
The Church has always risen to such occasions and gone out of her way to extend all possible help to the affected populations, he added.
The Apostolic Vicar of Nepal, the only Catholic Bishop in that country, has requested Caritas India to support and assist Caritas Nepal in the rescue and relief operations, Fr Ferrao said. "Caritas India has already begun sending human and material resources to provide succour to the affected people," Ferrao said.
The President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India has made an earnest appeal to the Bishops of India to encourage Catholic faithful, institutions and people of goodwill to express their solidarity and support and to make voluntary donations to this humanitarian cause.
The Church in Goa has been generous in the past, when natural calamities of this nature have created havoc in the lives of entire populations. Time has come to ?rise up again to the call of distress, he said.
"We call upon our Pastors as well as Superiors of religious institutions to announce the contents of this circular at Sunday masses and regular meetings and thus enable everyone to take part in this drive of the Church in Goa to bring relief to our suffering brethren in Nepal," the circular said.
