Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Support our Journalism

9th Anniversary: Free Tote & Mug

Pope Leo XIV gets India. Rome shouldn’t listen to India only when Christians are threatened

For Pope Leo XIV, India would not be a discovery but a return. A papal visit should crown a relationship, not substitute for one.

At Vatican audiences, gifts are usually the most visible and least consequential part of the encounter. Those presented to Pope Leo XIV on 28 August told a precise story. Published by Crossway in Wheaton, Illinois—within the Chicago metropolitan area—the Catholic edition of the English Standard Version Bible received official approval from India’s Latin bishops in 2019. Beside it was an oak plaque carved by Kerala artist Raphael: Christ surrounded by twelve saints associated with India, from Thomas the Apostle to Mother Teresa and Devasahayam. One gift acknowledged where the pope comes from. The other asked Rome to remember who Indian Catholics are.

Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão, Archbishop of Goa and Daman and president of both the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) and the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, led the delegation. The delegation’s meeting with Leo XIV lasted more than 45 minutes and covered the life, mission and pastoral concerns of the Latin Church. The bishops also handed him the CCBI’s Mission 2033 pastoral plan and its 2025 Bhubaneswar document.

The significance lies beyond the audience itself. India is one of the few countries Leo XIV does not need to discover through a briefing book. Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, travelled to Kerala and Tamil Nadu in 2004 and 2006 as prior general of the Augustinians. 

“Pope Leo knows the Church in India well,” Ferrão said afterwards. The test is whether memory can become policy.

Why India matters to Rome

Using 2011 census figures, the Ministry of External Affairs counts more than 19.9 million Catholics, the second-largest Catholic population in Asia. The CCBI represents 132 Latin........

© ThePrint