Three Indian cardinals have met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to apprise him of several Christian concerns and to urge him to invite Pope Francis to India.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias of the Latin-rite Church, Cardinal George Alencherry, major archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church, and Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Church, met Modi in his office in New Delhi on Jan. 19.
They requested the PM to invite Pope Francis to India, three years after India failed to invite the pontiff against Catholic leaders' expectations.
A papal visit "is long overdue. We expect a decision from the PM soon," Cardinal Alencherry told the media after meeting Modi.
Pope Francis had expressed interest in visiting India and church leaders expected him to visit in 2017, four years after his election to the papacy.
However, the pontiff canceled plans for an India visit and chose to visit Myanmar and Bangladesh instead after Modi's government, run by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), failed to invite him, the media reported at the time.
The cardinals who met Modi also sought an equitable distribution of social welfare funds meant for religious minorities such as Muslims and Christians. - UCA News
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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