St. Mary's Church is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church in Gulberg,

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. It was founded in 1961 in the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lahore The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Archdiocese of Lahore is a Latin Metropolitan Archdiocese in Punjab province, Pakistan. Its episcopal seat is the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Lahore. History In 1594 the Mughal emperor Akbar invited some Catho ...

. The parish priest from 2000 to 2002 was Fr. Francis Nadeem, OFMCap The parish priest in 2020 is Fr. Patrick Samuel, OFMCap

Programs

The parish hosts five youth groups whose activities are Prayer, Bible Sharing, Promoting Awareness of

Catechism A catechism (; from , "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of Catholic theology, doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult co ...

, Education, Peace and Social Harmony. The Parish is also home to the Family Fellowship Forum. The forum is attended by about 100 couples. It meets every two months to discuss issues such as tolerance in the family, children's formation, values and education. Father Morris Jalal started the forum after parishioners sought counselling from him about their family problems. The priest stressed the need to implement such programs in city parishes, where people do not even know their neighbours. St. Mary's Parish has about 2,200 families, 40 percent of which moved tere from areas outside Lahore. The parish has a college scholarship fund. St. Mary's Church held its fourth annual fund-raising event, titled ''Deep Say Deep Jalao'' (lighting one lamp after another), during the evening of June 10, 2006. That year, the parish raised 344,000 rupees (US$5,743). The program helped three young parishioners to get nursing training at hospitals and four others who went to study at the Don Bosco Technical Institute, Lahore. Another accomplishment was the opening of the Tarbiyat (training) Centre in the Parish in 2007, which had the aim of empowering parishioners through knowledge of their own and other religions. The centre's main resource base is its collection of 2,000 books in English and Urdu on

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...

Sikhism Sikhism is an Indian religion and Indian philosophy, philosophy that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent around the end of the 15th century CE. It is one of the most recently founded major religious groups, major religio ...

and

Taoism Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ' ...

. The library also contains books on culture, philosophy and sociology, as well as 200 compact discs. In addition, the centre has a computer with Internet access. Capuchin Father Eubert Pollentier served in the archdiocese for 48 years.

References

Roman Catholic churches in Lahore Roman Catholic churches completed in 1961 1961 establishments in Pakistan {{Pakistan-RC-church-stub