India plans to invite Pope, but wants a trip de-linked from Pak

The CBCI, officials said, had formally also asked Prime Minister Modi last week to invite the Pope.

New Delhi:  Even the Pope can't escape the shadow of India-Pakistan tensions.

The Narendra Modi government is planning to formally invite Pope Francis to India, prodded by the country's Catholic leadership, in a move that the BJP-led administration hopes will help blunt criticism that it is insensitive to minorities, senior officials said.

But sections within the government are keen to nudge the Pope away from also visiting Pakistan on the same trip after Islamabad beat New Delhi in inviting the leader of the Catholic Church earlier this month, complicating a papal itinerary the Vatican is trying to streamline.

For the Catholic Church in India, which has also sent its invitation to the Vatican, a visit by the Pope before November would be ideal. But for the Indian government, the fourth papal visit must ideally be de-linked from any trip to Pakistan.

"I sent the invitation on behalf of the Indian Catholic Church last week, and the Pope has received it," Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), told The Telegraph.

The Pope is both the leader of the Catholic Church and the head of the state of Vatican City, and needs invitations both from the Church and the government of a country to contemplate visiting it, diplomats familiar with papal protocol said.

The CBCI, officials said, had formally also asked Prime Minister Modi last week to invite the Pope.

A "hyphenated" visit to India and Pakistan would be problematic, two officials said, because of the perception that could create of a shared thrust by the Pope in both nations.

The Pope, if he visits Pakistan, would be expected to address concerns of that country's Christian community - of which roughly half are Catholic. India can't afford any equivalence - even in terms of perception - with Pakistan, the officials said.

Theoretically, keeping the pontiff's visits to India and Pakistan separate is entirely possible for the Vatican - and has precedent.

When Pope John Paul II visited Pakistan in 1981 - the only papal visit to the country so far - he clubbed that stopover with trips to the Philippines, Japan, the US and Guam.

He visited India on a standalone, 10-day trip five years later in 1986. In November 1999, Pope John Paul II again visited India - this time, he also travelled to Georgia. Pope Paul VI visited what was then Bombay in 1964.

Source: The Telegraph