India missed Pope Francis’ visit to the country.
During his 12 years of papacy, Francis visited several Asian countries, the most recent being Indonesia, Singapore, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea in 2024.
Unfortunately, he could not visit India, despite his desire to do so.
“It is a pity that Pope Francis never came to India, a country for which he often expressed his admiration many times,” said John Dayal, a leading lay Indian Catholic, senior journalist, and human rights activist.
According to him, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Francis twice—once in the Vatican and the other on the sidelines of a European conference, Dayal said in a social media post on April 21.
Franci died on April 21, 2025, at 88 in Vatican.
“It will remain a mystery why the government of India never officially extended an invitation for a formal visit,” said Dayal. “The pope visited lands around India in the South Asian region. However, he did not visit India.”
Indian cardinals and bishops representing the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) repeatedly urged Modi to invite India, but it went unheeded.
In 2016, Francis declared that he would visit India and Bangladesh. Francis cancelled his visit to India. However, the pope visited Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2017, as the plan to visit India did not push through for some reason.
Pope Francis visited India’s neighboring country, Sri Lanka, in 2015.
According to protocol, a papal visit is a "state visit," and the head of state must send an invitation to the Vatican asking to host the pope. Archbishops and cardinals had formed delegations and met with then-President Pranab Mukherjee and the Prime Minister’s Office, but they never got a commitment from either office, the Vatican-based Fides news agency reported in 2017.
Modi and the Indian Foreign Minister never explicitly said "no" to the papal visit, but they say they were considering it.
India is a country with a 1.4 billion population, including 79.8 % Hindu, 14.2 % Muslim, and 2.3 % Christian.
India is home to about 28 million Catholics, who make up the third-largest group, preceded by Muslims and Hindus.
Indian Catholics were disapponited as Francis could visit India as they were not able to obtain a commitment from the Indian government about pope's viist to the country.
In his 12-year pontificate, the pope made several international journeys to 47 countries.
Francis also had expressed his desire to visit China.There has been no full diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China since 1942, though in recent years, the Vatican has signed agreements with China with regard to appointing bishops with the Vatican's approval.
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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