Bhutan

The Bhutan mission began in 1963 when Jigme Dorji, the then Prime Minister of Bhutan invited the Darjeeling Jesuits to open “another North Point” in eastern Bhutan far from the developed west of the country.  From that time until the Jesuits left Bhutan in 1989, many Darjeeling Jesuits worked in three places to develop education in Bhutan especially Fr William Mackey who lived there until his death in October 1995 and Fr Gerard Leclaire who set up the first college in the country and Fr John Coffey who pioneered in Punakha, the summer capital of Bhutan. 

After the death of Fr Mackey, the pastoral ministry in the kingdom suffered for lack of a Catholic missionary in the kingdom. However, Bhutan, being under the care of the Diocese of Darjeeling, someone from there has been coming periodically to give mass to this Catholic community. In recent years it has been Fr Kinley Tshering, SJ, who has been celebrating the Eucharist for them. This Catholic community is considered an old group of Christian believers in the kingdom.  Many of them had accepted the Catholic faith when they or their parents were in Darjeeling (India). They have remained faithful. A few foreigners also join them in their worship once in a while.

The Darjeeling Jesuit Province has appointed Fr Kinley Tshering S.J., the only Bhutanese to have converted to Catholicism and a Jesuit priest, stationed full time in Bhutan to cater to the spiritual needs of the Christian faithful in the kingdom of Bhutan.