By Santosh Digal
Mumbai: An Italian prelate is expected to take over as the next apostolic nuncio to India, a top Indian Church leader says.
Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (Latin rite), told Matters India on January 19 that the Indian government has cleared the nuncio’s name. The cardinal, however, could not name the person.
The new nuncio’s announcement could happen on January 21.
India has been without a Vatican ambassador since early October when Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, who was the Apostolic Nuncio to India and Nepal for six years, left for Poland.
The new nuncio will take over at a time when India is preparing to receive Pope Francis, who has shown interest in visiting the country.
India witnessed three papal visits so far. The first Pope to visit India was Pope Paul VI, who came to Mumbai in 1964 to attend the International Eucharistic Congress.
Pope John Paul II visited 14 places in India in February 1986 and New Delhi in November 1999.
Several Indian dignitaries have, from time to time, called on the Pope in the Vatican. The latest was federal External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who led the Indian delegation at the canonization of Mother Teresa on September 4, 2016, at the Vatican.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi me the Pope in 1981, and I.K. Gujral, another premier, in 1987. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was the prime minister three times, called on the Pope in 2000 during his official visit to Italy.
Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat represented the country at the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
The Vatican has a nunciature in New Delhi while India has accredited its embassy in Bern, Switzerland, to the Holy See as well. India’s current ambassador to the Holy See is Smitha Purushottam since September 2015.
The Vatican-India bilateral relations was formally started on June 12, 1948, nearly a year after India became an independent nation. However, an apostolic delegation existed in India from 1881. The apostolic delegation to the East Indies then included Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and was extended to Malaca in 1889, and then to Burma in 1920.
The connections between the Catholic Church and India are traced to Saint Thomas the Apostle, who, according to tradition, came to India in 52 AD.
Bishops were sent to India from Syria as early as the 6th or 7th centuries. There is a record of an Indian bishop visiting Rome at the time of Pope Callixtus II (1119–1124).
Pope Pius XII It raised it to an Inter-nunciature in 1948 and to full apostolic nunciature in 1967 by Pope Paul VI.