In a land area of around 35,300 square kilometers, the diocese covers the districts of Faisalabad, Jhang, Toba Tek Singh, Sahiwal, Okara and Pak Pattan.
Faisalabad, the city of textiles, is Pakistan's third largest city with a population of over 2 million. It is the second largest diocese in the country..
Punjabi is widely spoken language in different dialects. While Urdu and English are also the major languages in diocese.
Christianity was rooted in this territory before the arrival of missionaries. Faisalabad included three old Christian villages including Khushpur, Pakistan's oldest Catholic village in Punjab province.
Faisalabad diocese was created on the April 13, 1960 when it was separated from the diocese of Multan, also in Punjab province. At that time, Multan had a population of 12,000 Catholics and Faisalabad had 50,000 Catholics. The see of the new diocese was in Faisalabad city. It now comprises districts of Faisalabad, Jhang, Toba Tek Singh, Sahiwal, Okara and Pak Pattan.
The first batch of priests in the 1960s produced six priests and the vocations grew afterwards. Groups of priests and catechists use to travel on bicycles to the villages twice a year. Each of these groups used to stay over night in the village, eat simple foods and move on to another village next morning.
Dominican Bishop Francis Benedict Cialeo of Multan was transferred to Faisalabad to become the first bishop as he had previously worked in this area as a priest with his three companions when he came in 1931 under the guidance of capuchin missionaries.
As the bishop of Multan, he invited Dominican nuns to work in education and health. In 1959 he invited La Salle brothers who stated the well known school branch in Faisalbad in 1961 with only two catholic students boys.
Bishop Cialeo built many schools, churches and other institutes and finally laid the foundation of Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1965, the building was consecrated in 1969.
Dominican Bishop Paul Andreotti, the second bishop of Faisalabad, erected different commissions including commission for the laity and Family commission. He organized the BILA 7, the first seminar for Laity in Pakistan.
He also helped in send many Christian students to Italy for the study of medicine. Among his several projects include a leprosy center, housing colonies for Christians, formation houses and catholic conventions and pilgrimages. He asked for retirement to hand over the leadership to locals.
Father John Joseph, the first local diocesan priest became the third bishop of Faisalabad. He wrote many books and worked mainly for Christian Muslim Dialogue. struggle for repeal of Blasphemy law was his main interest. Bishop John Joseph, killed himself at the entrance of a courthouse on May 6, 1998 as a protest against the blasphemy law.
The diocese celebrated its golden jubilee celebration on April 13, 2010.
Many Pakistani nuns from Faisalabad diocese are presently working as missionaries in other countries including Afghanistan.
The climate of the territory touches two extremes. The maximum temperature in summer reaches upto 50 °C (122°F). In winter, it may, at times. fall below freezing point. The mean maximum and minimum temperature in summer are 39 and 27 °C respectively and in winter, 21 and 6 °C respectively. The summer season starts from April and continues till October. May, June and July are the hottest months. The winter season, on the other hand, starts from November and continues till March. December, January and February are the coldest months.
