The Catholic Church in India is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope. There are over 20 million Catholics in India, representing around 1.55% of the total population, and the Catholic Church is the single largest Christian church in India. There are 10,701 parishes that make up 174 dioceses and eparchies, which are organised into 29 ecclesiastical provinces. Of these, 132 dioceses are of the Latin Church, 31 of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and 11 of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Despite the very small population that Indian Catholics make up percentage wise, India still has the second-largest Christian population in Asia after the Catholic Church in the Philippines.
Mylapore's Santhome Basilica at Madras (Chennai), built in 1523 by the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay, over the tomb of Thomas the Apostle. Renovated in 1896 by British Indian architects, it is an important shrine of the Apostolic age in the world.
Marth Mariam Syro-Malabar Catholic Church at Arakuzha, Kerala, is an ancient Nasrani church established in 999.
A facade of the Basilica of Our Lady of Vailankanni, in Tamil Nadu (the Coromandel region).
Mother Teresa
Roman Catholic Diocese of Quilon
The Diocese of Quilon is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or diocese of the Catholic Church based in the southern Indian city of Kollam. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Trivandrum. The Diocese of Quilon covers an area of 1,950 km2 that contains a population of some 4.8 million. At least 4.8% of the people in the area are Catholic.
John De Marignolli, Papal legate in Quilon, 1348–1349.
