Pope Francis on July 16 appointed Father Deepak Valerian Tauro, rector of St Albert’s College in Ranchi, as the auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Delhi,  according to a press release from Father Stephen Alathara, deputy secretary general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in India.

The 54-year-old bishop-elect is a priest of the diocese of Muzaffarpur in Bihar, eastern India.

Bishop-elect Tauro was born on August 2, 1967, at Chikmagalur in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

 He did his minor seminary at Muzaffarpur in Bihar State and studied Philosophy at Morning Star College, Kolkata.

He completed his Theology at St. Albert’s College in Ranchi. He was ordained a priest on May 10, 1996, for the diocese of Muzaffarpur.

He has a Masters in Spirituality and Counselling from Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram in Bengaluru, capital of Karnataka state.

 He started his priestly ministry as assistant parish priest at Samastipur in 1996. After a year he went to Bettiah as it assistant parish priest. In 1999, he was appointed rector of the Minor Seminary in Muzaffarpur, a post he held thrice 1999-2002, 2005-2007 and 2010-2011.

He served as the secretary to the bishop for three years from 2007. He also worked the director of Diocesan Youth Forum, regional secretary of Conference of Diocesan Priests of India.

He was professor and spiritual director at Ranchi’s St. Albert’s College, Ranchi during 2011-2015. Since 2012, he has served as the secretary of Bihar, Jharkhand and Andaman’s Bishops Council and since 2015, the rector of St. Albert’s College, Ranchi.

Catholic population in Delhi archdiocese is about 100,300, spread over 61 parishes. They are served by 132 diocesan priests, 157 religious priests and 413 women religious.

  Catholic Bishops Conference of India, Church, Delhi Archdiocese