Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the first Indian Prime Minister to meet Pope Francis since the Holy Father became head of the Catholic Church in 2013. It was also the first meeting between an Indian Prime Minister and a Pope since 2000, when late PM Atal Behari Vajpayee visited the Vatican and met Pope John Paul II. Before PM Modi, Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, IK Gujral and Atal Behari Vajpayee had met the then Popes in the Vatican. The first Pope to visit India was Pope Paul VI, who visited Mumbai in 1964 to attend the International Eucharistic Congress. Pope John Paul II visited several places in India including Chennai and Goa in 1986 and then again visited New Delhi in 1999. In 2014 Pope Francis had expressed his inability to visit India for the 17th exposition of the sacred relics of St Francis Xavier in Goa. This time around Pope Francis has reportedly accepted PM Modi’s invitation to visit India. Hopefully Goa will be included in the itinerary during the Holy Father’s forthcoming visit to India. It will be a great spiritual experience for the Catholic community in the state.
