Goa Basilica to invite pope

It plans to invite him for the 2014 exposition of pioneering Jesuit St. Francis Xavier.

(Photo Courtesy: Guardian.co.uk)

Panaji:  The officials of Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa are planning to invite Pope Francis for the 2014 exposition of pioneering Jesuit St. Francis Xavier.

The chances of the first Jesuit pontiff arriving in the beach tourism oriented state are "healthy,” said Fr. Savio Barretto, rector of the Basilica of Bom Jesus, wehre the mortal remains of the saint are kept.

He said that Basilica officials have received many enquiries about inviting pope to the event.

“We will be calling him (pope) and request the central government to formally make a request to the Vatican city also,” he said.

During the event the relics of the saint, kept in a silver casket elevated inside the Basilica, are exposed or being brought to ground level. The exposition generally happens every ten years and the last was held in 2004 December for about one month. The next is due in November 2014.

"The chances of Pope Francis coming for the exposition look good because he may not even need an invitation to visit the resting place of his fellow Jesuit brother," the priest said.

St. Francis Xavier, who hailed from Navarra in the Basque region of Spain, heralded Christianity in several part of Asia, after he arrived in Goa, the then Portuguese capital in 1542.

After his death in 1552 in Shangchuan, China, his body was first ferried to Malacca in Malaysia, and later stored in 1553 in the grand Basilica of Bom Jesus.

Believers regard it as a miracle that the body has survived for nearly 500 years, while skeptics have historically argued that the mortal remains of the saint have been embalmed to ensure its survival.

Every year, more than a million believers throng the church complex in Old Goa, located a short distance from here.

Catholics account for nearly 25 percent of the state's population of 1.4 million.

Source: oneindia