Indian Church leaders upbeat about Modi-Francis meet
Indian Church leaders are upbeat about the scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pope Francis on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Italy, saying it can enhance the chances of a papal visit to the world's most populous nation.
Jun 14, 2024

NEW DELHI: Indian Church leaders are upbeat about the scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pope Francis on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Italy, saying it can enhance the chances of a papal visit to the world's most populous nation.
“It [the meeting] will help accelerate the long-awaited visit of the supreme pontiff to India,” said Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara of Faridabad, which falls in the National Capital Region (NCR) of New Delhi.
Bharanikulangara said the meeting will positively impact “the relationship between India and the Holy See.”
The three-day summit of the G-7 industrialized nations—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US—is currently underway in Apulia, Italy.
According to Vatican News, Pope Francis will attend the summit and hold bilateral discussions with several global leaders.
Francis will be the first pope to attend a G-7 summit.
He is scheduled to address the meeting and hold one-to-one meetings with leaders of different countries, including representatives of developing nations like Algeria, Brazil, India, Kenya, and Turkiye.
“Their meeting will be more of a courtesy, but it will have a positive impact,” noted Bharanikulangara.
The archbishop told UCA News on June 14 that both leaders will revive the personal bond they established during Modi’s visit to the Vatican in 2021.
In October 2021, Modi visited the pope in the Vatican and invited him to see India.
Pope Francis visited Bangladesh in 2017 following his trip to neighboring Myanmar.
However, India did not find a place in the itinerary, although it has around 28 million Christians, making up 2.3 percent of the nation's population, which is more than 1.4 billion people.
Modi’s pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindu groups that support it are considered to be working against missionary works in India.
Observers say the Hindu political leaders would not want their supporters to see them shaking hands with the pope, who is seen as the head of the Catholic missionary network.
Eleven Indian states, most of them ruled by the BJP, have enacted a sweeping anti-conversion law, primarily targeting Christian missionary activities.
During Modi's ten-year rule, Christian leaders have recorded hundreds of incidents of large-scale violence.
The pope-Modi meeting in Italy is "a great gesture,” said Father Robinson Rodrigues, public relations officer of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI).
“We hope Modi will remind Pope Francis about his [Modi’s] invitation to visit India,” Rodrigues told UCA News on June 14.
We are hopeful that the Vatican and the Indian Church will accelerate the process for the pope's India visit. The priest said a papal visit to India is “a matter of pride” for Indian Christians.
Daniel John, a Catholic lay leader based in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, said the two leader's meeting "will help pave the way for an early visit of the pope to India.”
“Christians, especially Catholics, have been waiting for the pope's visit to India,” John told UCA News on June 14.--ucanews.com
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