A papal visit that could not fructify
Pope Francis was likely to visit India next year but his sojourn could not materialise after he breathed his last on Monday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Pope Francis twice — in 2021 and 2024 — and extended an invitation for him to visit India that the pontiff had accepted.
Union Minister George Kurian, who visited Vatican City last December, said the much-awaited visit was expected to take place after the celebrations of the jubilee year of Jesus Christ’s birth by the Catholic Church in 2025.
The last papal visit to India was in 1999 when Pope John Paul II came to New Delhi to preside over the concluding celebrations of the Special Assembly of Synod of Bishops of Asia. He had met the then Vice-President Krishan Kant and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Pope John Paul II also visited India in February 1986 and toured different parts of the country, including the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata and met the Indian leadership.
The first pontiff to visit India was Paul IV, who visited Mumbai in 1964 to attend the International Eucharistic Congress.
Modi, along with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar first met Pope Francis in Vatican City in October 2021 on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rome.
The Prime Minister had extended an invitation to Pope Francis to visit India at an early date.
Modi also met Pope Francis on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Apulia, Italy, in June last year and renewed the invitation for him to visit India.
Pope Francis, who was battling complications arising out of a complex lung infection, breathed his last on Monday at the age of 88.
