Father Salva is surprised and pleased with his new congregations in the area

By Caroline Downs

Father Periannan Salva, 48, speaks seven languages, including two from his native country of India, three from Africa, and French. He started learning English as a schoolboy in rural India, but for all the traveling he has done across Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia and all the congregations with whom he has spoken, he never had to communicate in English until he received the call from the bishop of the Bismarck Diocese.

That call set him on a course for North Dakota. He stopped first in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to serve in a congregation there for nearly six months and practice his English.

"I had never said or done a speech in English until I moved to Canada," he said with a smile. "I polished my English in Canada!"

Father Salva arrived in Bismarck in mid-October and moved to Kenmare by the end of the month. He laughed at himself as he described his attempts to communicate with his parishioners. "After a month, it’s much better," he said in accented but nearly flawless English, "and I’m getting to the tune of the local people!"

His first view of the United States was Bismarck, and he has refrained from driving on the icy and snowy roads, but Father Salva is clearly delighted with his new assignment. "The people here are very warm and encouraging," he said. "They help me in every way to make me feel comfortable."

Father Salva is serving St. Agnes Catholic Church in Kenmare, St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Donnybrook, and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Bowbells. He has been surprised and pleased with the helpful nature of his congregations. "They do work around the church, they do work for the church, they do work with the church," he said.

Ordained in India in 1988
He was ordained as a priest in 1988 and served for eight years in India before working in Africa for six years. He returned to India, where he was given a new parish and a new congregation of 170 families attending services in an open-walled, thatched-roof structure that expanded within three years to 300 families and a new church building.

He has also traveled as a mission delegate to speak with congregations in Europe, including France, Germany and Belgium, and Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Singapore.

His assignment in the United States represents a welcome change. "I wanted to be away from India for some time," he said. "I like to go and help the Church in need."

Father Salva’s own journey to the priesthood illustrates his personal faith. He was born the youngest of three sons to a Catholic mother and a Hindu father, who converted to Catholicism in order to marry his wife. The family lived in a rural Indian village of 60 families where farming and physical labor made for a satisfactory life.

Education was not valued in the community, but for some reason Father Salva’s parents decided their children should go to school. Their neighbors criticized them. "There was no need for education," Father Salva said. "They never had any reason to go beyond their village."

As a child, he didn’t see any reason for school either. "To go to school would be an embarrassment," he said. "School was a strange thing. Our life was about manual work, and here they were forcing us to go."

His studies in the first five grades were haphazard, conducted by teachers paid by the government merely for signing in rather than for teaching the children any subjects. Many times, Father Salva and his classmates were left unsupervised for the majority of the day, to play or wander until the time came to walk home.

His two older brothers were sent to boarding school, but Father Salva stayed with his family where he helped with the cattle and the farming and the duties around the house, including carrying 10-gallon jars of water from the village well for use in the house and for the livestock. Church attendance was also a regular, if infrequent, part of his life.

"I was forced to go to church once a month, walking seven miles," he said, speaking of a nearby village church his parents attended. "I never saw a Bible until I joined the seminary, but the faith within my parents was so strong. I remember them begging me to read the prayers for them."

As much as he disliked church and school, Father Salva had an affinity, even as a child, for people at the edges of society. The caste system existed in his village, with the high caste families living in one area together and the low caste individuals condemned to live on the outskirts. The low caste people were limited to doing the most menial work available, and could not even draw water from the same well as the rest of the village.

Father Salva never understood the differences. He had friends among the low caste children and would join them for meals and celebrations, even though his parents reprimanded him. "I used to ask, ‘Why not?’" he said. "All are human. God prepared me before I was born with these ideas of equality, peace, justice and brotherhood. I would argue with my parents for this."

He continued going to school, despite pressure from the other villagers to stop. By the time he entered 6th grade, he followed a walking trail five miles from his home and across a river to the town where a high school had been built. The teachers were attentive to their students there, but Father Salva had not yet learned to read or write.

He struggled with his subjects, especially mathematics and English, and found excuses to lose his books in the river’s flood waters after a rainstorm, or even nap on the river bank. "My parents never knew I wasn’t going to school," he said.

Turning point of life
Christmas Mass during his 10th grade year proved to be one turning point in his life. The parish priest, always a distant figure, approached all the 10th graders, shared brochures about opportunities in the Church, and asked them to assist him with altar duties.

Father Salva was immediately interested. "I thought, ‘The priests just say masses,’" he said. "Going to school, I had to study, but if I become a priest, I can escape my studies!"

Within a year, Father Salva was reading Catholic magazines supplied by the priest and studying the advertisements from various seminaries. "My feelings fit here," he said. "I thought I can be with the poor, work with the poor and low caste people and all the suffering ones."

He chose two addresses and sent letters of inquiry. He heard back from one that stated the seminary required high marks in five school subjects before considering an interview. "This was disappointing," he said. "I never passed all my subjects."

He decided to try, however. "The Lord encouraged me," he said. "I prayed, let me study now. I carried so many books to the school!"

Father Salva had spent nearly 11 years avoiding his teachers, but now he asked their help. He read late into the night by the family’s kerosene lamp and practiced his memorization out loud in the pre-dawn hours, even as the neighbors complained to his mother. "I was so mad for study all day and night," he said. "And I passed everything! All that I disliked, I started liking. My life became enlightened."

He considers this as the second turning point in his life. He passed his 12th grade final exams as the second highest student in the class. "Everybody was amazed," he said. "I was the only Catholic student with 700 Hindu students in the school. It was a great witness!"

Then he heard back from the seminary priest who had written him earlier, stating a time and date for a visit at Father Salva’s home. "I had never told my mother I had written to the priest," he said. "This was a secret plan between God and myself, to escape from the school. I didn’t know what to do. I’d been caught."

The priest met him at the school, and Father Salva had to explain the five-mile walk through the countryside to his home. All the villagers stared at the stranger when the two arrived, and his mother’s first inkling of the visit was when she saw the priest in his brown cassock escorting her son.

"It was the first time a priest came to our house," said Father Salva. His father was called from the field, and the two sat down with their son and the visitor.

The priest explained he had received Father’s Salva’s letter asking about the priesthood, so he had come to request permission from the parents. "My mother said, ‘No. He is my last son. We need him,’" Father Salva recalled. "My father started asking questions and said, ‘He has to decide for his life. If God is calling him, take him.’"

Father Salva joined other young people at a 10-day camp for potential seminarians. "Twenty-one of them were educated in Catholic or convent schools," he said, describing the way the others played instruments and chatted comfortably in English and other languages. "One was from the remotest village. I spoke no English and felt inferior."

Even eating at a table with forks, knives and spoons felt foreign. "I had never seen such a thing in my life," he said. "I was thrown into a different world."

He returned home believing he would never be a priest, but a card soon arrived with his acceptance. "Out of 22, only 12 were selected," he said. "I asked what did they find in me. They said it was the interview questions, when I said, ‘I want to be with the poor. I want to serve the poor. I like to serve God through the poor.’"

Seminary proved difficult for Father Salva, however. He struggled with the English language, humiliated at his lack of knowledge, and continually battled feelings of inferiority, to the point where he hardly slept at night.

Finally, he approached the director and asked to simply go home.

The director encouraged him instead. "He said, ‘You’re going to be the best and first student among all the students,’" recalled Father Salva. "‘Don’t worry. You have so much grace and faith in God.’ That made me study, study, study, day and night."

Father Salva’s grades improved until he became first in the class. He also learned to play several instruments, including the keyboard, flute and Indian drums, and he composed music as well. His success at the seminary prompted his superiors to offer him the director’s position there, which he held for six years.

Eventually, religious politics at the institution frustrated him, and he requested a move to Africa, where he assisted with new parishes and worked with AIDs patients. Then came the return to India for three years, until he again became disenchanted with action of some Church leaders.

Father Salva finally requested an assignment where he could work alone. "I was open to my superior to find a place for me," he said. "And the Bismarck bishop called. I hadn’t even heard of Bismarck, but everything is like a miracle and ever since I’ve arrived, I’ve been thanking God."

His compassion for the poor and for children is evident both from his stories and from the photos he keeps from former parishes. He stands out as the tallest figure among crowds of 25 or 30 children, all of whom he can name and many of whom he sent to school. "Education only can make you better," he said. "I tell them, ‘Don’t stop going to school. Even if you stop going to church, don’t stop going to school!’"

Father Salva is clear about his intentions to maintain his relationships with the children he knows in India through his work in the United States. He spends little money on himself, and sends the majority of his salary home. His brothers and their families are businesspeople in one of India’s cities now, and his mother lives with them; they use his earnings to pay for school tuition, books and other needs of the children Father Salva helps.

He is also definite in his goals for the Kenmare, Donnybrook and Bowbells parishes. "I want people to renew their faith and keep God as a part of their lives," he said. "The world is changing, and going to church and having faith in God is becoming outdated. But it’s not the ‘things’ that make you new. God is our foundation, to guide us, to save us, to lead us to be happy."

He holds a deep passion for his faith and his work, as well as for the members of his parish. "I’m studying my people," he said. "They’re very faithful, and they sacrifice so much for the faith they have in God. They are searching for something, silently. Sometimes it goes beyond their wisdom and control, and they’re not able to catch it."

He paused and smiled again. "Unless it goes deeper, you go on searching," he said.

He views his presence here as way to inspire faith. "I’m giving my spirit to the people," he said, "as a way to make God more meaningful in their lives."

As much as he smiles, Father Salva takes his work seriously, even when the consequences can be unpleasant as he knows too well from his past. "What God wants me to tell, I have to say," he said. "Whether they like it or not, I will say it!"feature108-51.htm