The new Catholic church blessed in Yirol, Rumbek diocese in Lakes state, is a monument to cooperation among donors from Italy, Spain and the local community.
This is how Bishop Caesar Mazzolari from Rumbek interpreted the inauguration of the new temple that took place yesterday.Bishop Mazzolari recalled that Yirol is about 45 miles away from the place where the first bishop of Sudan, Daniel Comboni, lived between 1875 and 1876.
He added that Comboni’s mission was called Holy Cross. For that reason the new church is dedicated to the Holy Cross too.
A huge crowd took part in yesterday’s blessing presided by bishop Mazzolari and attended by civil and religious authorities.
The new church seats 750 people, but the parish priest Fr. Joseph Parlade, a Comboni missionary from Spain, said that on Sundays more than 1000 people fit in.
The new temple took seven years to build.
The money came from donors in Italy, Spain and the local community.
The old church, built in local materials and covered with grass, was transformed into a primary school: it was divided in four classrooms with 90 students each.