Plans made for India's first Catholic university

(RNS) India will have its first Catholic university around June, according to the indigenous Catholic religious order behind the university plan. Indian Catholics' highest decision making body, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), is backing a plan to establish Dharmadeepti University at Jagdalpur, a town in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

The Carmelite of Mary Immaculate (CMI) order is expected to spend more than $100 million to establish the university. The order was founded in India in 1829 by two Catholic priests in the south Indian state of Kerala, where it is traditionally believed that Thomas, an apostle of Christ, brought the Gospel message in the first century.

Although Christians (Protestants included) make up 3 percent of India's population of more than 1 billion, it has only been in recent years that some education laws were amended to facilitate setting up Christian universities.

The Carmelite order capitalized on the government's 2001 Private Universities Act that allows private entrepreneurship in opening universities. CMI formed the Christian Educational Foundation of India and received a government permit in September 2003 to start the university.