Pope Francis has been invited to India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The news of the invitation broke out after the Prime Minister’s meeting with Pope Francis on Saturday. It will be the first papal visit to India since 1999 when Pope John Paul II visited India during the Prime Ministerial tenure of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
PM Modi invited Pope Francis to visit India. Now it is during PM Modi’s Prime Ministerial term that the Pope has been invited to visit India: Sources
— ANI (@ANI) October 30, 2021
The last Papal Visit happened in 1999 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the PM and Pope John Paul II visited India.
Earlier, Narendra Modi had a meeting with the Pope that went on for a hour. The fight against climate change and poverty were issues that were discussed. Narendra Modi is on a 2-Day visit to Rome to attend the 16th G-20 summit.
Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla had said yesterday, “The Prime Minister will have a separate call. He will be meeting his Holiness on a one-on-one basis. And that could, after a certain period of time, be followed up by delegation-level talks.”
He had added, “I believe tradition is not to have an agenda when you discuss issues with His Holiness. And I think we respect that. I’m sure the issues that will be covered will cover a range of areas of interests in terms of the general global perspectives and issues that are important to all of us.”
