Delhi Archbishop Anil Joseph Thomas Couto and Thamarassery Bishop Mar Remigiose Inchananiyil have claimed that the Indian government did not grant permission for the late Pope Francis to visit the country, despite longstanding expectations and multiple signals of interest from the Vatican.
“He (Pope Francis) too was waiting. He said five years ago, ‘I am knocking on the doors of your government, but they are not opening the doors to me.’ Now maybe God has opened doors for him in heaven,” said Anil Joseph Thomas Couto.
Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, has died at the age of 88, the Vatican said in a video statement.
His statement has brought renewed attention to the repeated delays and apparent reluctance on the part of the Indian authorities to host the head of the Catholic Church.
Thamarassery Bishop Mar Remigiose Inchananiyil also echoed the sentiment, stating that the Pope was “very sad” about not being able to come to India.
“The Pope had a special desire to visit India. Unfortunately, our doors did not open. That caused him great sorrow,” he told reporters.
Both bishops were mourning the death of Pope Francis.
The news stands in stark contrast to earlier gestures of goodwill. During the G7 summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had extended a formal invitation to Pope Francis to visit India. Union Minister George Kurien had also remarked that both the Indian state and its Christian community were eagerly awaiting the visit. However, despite these overtures, no official invitation materialised that would enable the Pope’s visit.
India has not hosted a papal visit in over 25 years. The last Pope to visit the country was John Paul II, who made two trips—one in February 1986 and another in November 1999. His 1999 visit to New Delhi was significant, as it included the issuance of a papal document on the Church in Asia. Before him, Pope Paul VI visited Mumbai in 1964 to attend the International Eucharistic Congress, marking the first-ever papal visit to India.
Although India has more Catholics than several majority-Christian countries in Asia combined—such as Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore—it has not seen a papal visit in over two decades.
Around 2017, there was speculation about an imminent visit by Pope Francis, but he ultimately travelled to neighboring Myanmar and Bangladesh instead, after an official invitation from India reportedly failed to come through.
The Pope’s unfulfilled desire to visit India also comes amid growing concerns over increasing discrimination and violence against religious minorities, including Christians, under the current political climate.
