Shillong Archbishop Dominic Jala Dies in Fatal Car Crash

Shillong, October 12, 2019:

Archbishop Dominic Jala SDP, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Shillong, Meghalaya, and IECL Commissioner of India for many years, died in a car crash in the United States on October 10. The accident occurred in Colusa County, Oakland, California. Salesian Archbishop Jala was 68.

Archbishop Dominic Jala and Father Mathew Vellankal, who were working in the United States, passed away in a fatal car crash with a semi truck while on the way to Clearlake, California. Another Father, Joseph Pareckatt, is reported to be in in serious condition in the hospital. This news was confirmed by Father G. Alangadan in Oakland.

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Reports from Salesian sources in Shillong say Archbishop was going to California to meet his friend. He had gone to the US to attend a meeting of International Commission for English liturgy in New York.

Father Vellankal, 50, was the pastor of St. Isidore Parish in Danville, California, since 2016. Archbishop Jala was born on July 12, 1951, in Mawlai in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya.

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He was ordained a priest for the Salesians of Don Bosco on November 19, 1977. He was the provincial of the congregation’s Guwahati province before he was appointed the archbishop of Shillong on December 22, 1999. His episcopal ordination was on April 2, 2000.

Archbishop Jala is the second Indian archbishop to die in a car accident abroad. Earlier, Archbishop Alan de Lastic of Delhi had died on June 20, 2000, in a car crash in Poland.

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