Location :
Infant Jesus Church is located at Karimale, 1.5kms distance away from Vamadapadav (a small town). It is in the Bantwal Taluk of Dakshina Kannada district.
The Beginning :
The church of Vamadapadav is a long felt need of the local Catholics since it was difficult to walk a long distance to go to their respective parishes of Siddakatte, Agrar and Nirkan. Rev.Fr. Peter Serrao, then parish priest of St.Patrick's church, Siddakatte having realized the difficulties of these people, represented the matter to the Bishop of Mangalore, who gave the green signal to him to proceed with and gave the financial help to purchase 4.30 cents of land at Karimale in Chennaithody village. Hence the land was bought on 07.01.1986. And later 75 cents of land adjacent to the above was acquired from the revenue department for the burial ground.
For the same reason around 200 persons of 64 families of Siddakatte, Agrar and Nirkan area assembled at St. Barthalomeo's Higher Primary School, Kukkipady with respective parish priests Rev.Frs. Peter Serrao, Charle's Aranha (Agrar) and Lancy Mathias (Nirkan) on 01.10.1988. Rt.Rev.Dr. Basil S D'Souza, the Bishop of Mangalore presided over the meeting. It was decided to construct the church building sufficient for 500 persons. Till the building gets ready it was decided to celebrate the Sunday Mass at Kukkipady school, (two kms away from the present church building) from the first week of November 1988.
The new church building at Karimale, dedicated to the patronage of 'Infant Jesus of Prague' was completed and blessed on 28.04.1992 by the Bishop of Mangalore.
Formation of new parish :
The new parish priest of Siddakatte, Rev.Fr.John D'Souza took initiative to establish Vamadapadav as an independent parish as he found it difficult to serve the place, specially on Sundays. On 19.05.1993 Infant Jesus Church Karimale, Vamadapadav was erected as the new parish and Rev.Fr. Richard Saldanha was appointed as the first parish priest.
In the same year Rev.Fr. Stanly Pereira donated three acres of land close to the parish. In that nearly an acre of land has been divided into 10 cents with a road to approach each portion. Presently it has been occupied by 9 economically poor families.
A new parochial house was built in 1995. It was blessed by Rt.Rev.Dr. Basil S.D'Souza on 25th July 1995. On the same day 'St. Barthalomeo Hr. Primary government aided school' was transferred from Siddakatte to Vamadapadav parish.
The parish celebrated its decennial year in the year 2002. On this occasion Renovated mini hall and a grotto of Infant Jesus were inaugurated. Rev.Fr. Ronald Miranda was the parish priest during that time. The new Belfry was built in 2005. The new bell which was brought from Rome was donated by Rev.Fr. Charles Serrao OCD , a parishioner. The church sanctuary was renovated and a new sacristy was added & inaugurated on 3.9.2006.
Parish Priests who have served in the parish :
- Rev. Fr. Richard Saldanha (1993 - 2000)
- Rev. Fr. Ronald Miranda (2000 - 2007)
- Rev. Fr. Abel Lobo (2007 - 2011)
- Rev. Fr. Sylvester D'costa (2011 - 2018)
- Rev Fr Stany Fernandes (2018)
- Rev. Fr Leo Veigas (Parochial Adm. from 2018, later P.P. upto 2023)
- Rev. Fr Kiran Maxim Pinto (from 2023 onwards)
Compiled by Catholic Time Staff with inputs from infantjesuskarimale.wixsite.com/welcome/aboutus
Last updated in Dec 2023.
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