India has more Catholics than Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore combined. So why isn’t the subcontinent on the itinerary for Pope Francis’ trip to Asia and Oceania?
That question is currently being asked by Catholics in India, who number around 20 million.
The last time they had a papal visit was 25 years ago, when John Paul II made a four-day trip to New Delhi. That was in 1999, meaning no pope has set foot in India in the 21st century — though Pope Francis flew through Indian airspace this week on his way to Indonesia, sending a courtesy telegram to India’s head of state Droupadi Murmu.
Unbuilt bridges
In a Sept. 3 post at indiancatholicmatters.org, Tom Thomas lamented the missed opportunity for a papal trip to India.
“Pope Francis’ visit to our country would have surely built stronger bridges among us all,” he wrote. “Above all, it would have strengthened our faith too.”
There’s no shortage of reasons why Indian Catholics would benefit from the pope’s presence.
According to the charity Open Doors, India is the 11th worst country in which to be a Christian. A total of 161 incidents of discrimination and persecution against Christians were recorded in the first 75 days of 2024 alone. A papal visit would offer hope to an embattled religious minority.
Pope Francis has a preference for visiting what Vatican official Fr. Antonio Spadaro calls the “zero point” Churches, where Catholics are a tiny percentage of the population. Despite being counted in the millions, Catholics only account for around 1.55% of India’s population, so they fit the bill.
A visit could also draw attention to flourishing aspects of Indian Catholic life, such as the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health in Velankanni, Tamil Nadu, recently praised by the Vatican’s doctrine office.
A trip might have been timed to coincide with the exposition of the relics of St. Francis Xavier, a co-founder of Pope Francis’ Jesuit order. The exposition, which takes place every 10 years, will begin Nov. 21.
Diminishing influence?
India seemed on course for a papal visit around 2017. But Pope Francis visited the neighboring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar instead, after an official invitation to India reportedly failed to materialize.
A few years later, in 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced he had invited Pope Francis to visit India following “a very warm” private audience at the Vatican. Modi renewed the invitation when he met with the pope in June this year, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy.
Yet there is still no sign of papal visit. Why? Indian commentators suggest Modi’s invitations aren’t as straightforward as they might seem.
Writing at ucanews.com in June, Nirendra Dev said that any papal invitation would need to be endorsed by the RSS, a powerful Hindu nationalist organization.
“The parent body of India’s ruling party does not approve of the pope’s presence on Indian soil, fearing it may rekindle and boost the conversion of Hindus to Christianity,” he noted.
Verghese V. Joseph, editor-in-chief of indiancatholicmatters.org, agreed that fear of a Hindu nationalist backlash was an important factor.
But he also blamed the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), a body representing the country’s Latin, Syro-Malabar, and Syro-Malankara Catholics.
“The CBCI’s inability to persuade the Indian government to invite the pope underscores a broader trend of diminishing influence,” he argued Sept. 3.
Deep-rooted resistance
There’s no indication that either Pope Francis or Vatican officials are hesitant about an India visit. The long journey would obviously be challenging for an 87-year-old with mobility problems, but no more so than his current 20,000-mile trip.
Rather, the hold-up seems to be in India — in the wider circles around Modi, who view the papacy with historically rooted suspicion. Overcoming that resistance may be beyond the current powers of India’s bishops, if they are as marginal as Joseph suggests.
Earlier this year, Modi hinted that India could host the pope in 2025. But local Catholics will believe it when they see it.
