A delegation of 30 priests and 150 members of the laity from Pakistan have left for Rome to attend a public consistory at St Peter’s Basilica at which Archbishop of Karachi Joseph Coutts and 12 other bishops from around the world will be made Cardinals by Pope Francis on June 28.

Coutts, 72, traces his roots to Aldona and has a family home at Uccasaim. He will be Pakistan’s second cardinal and also the country’s second Goan-origin ‘prince of the church’ after Joseph Cordeiro.

The Pakistani delegation will greet the new cardinals at the Pope Paul VI audience hall in Vatican City and will also attend mass at the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29, where archbishops from around the world who were appointed since the last feast of the two saints will receive the pallium (an ecclesiastical vestment).

A special luncheon has been arranged for the new cardinals on Saturday. Then, on July 1, the faithful will attend Mass celebrated by Cardinal Coutts at the Collegio Urbano.

On his return to Pakistan after his appointment to the cardinalate, Coutts will be welcomed at the airport and driven to Karachi’s St Patrick’s cathedral in a motorcade. Fr Mario Rodrigues, the cathedral’s rector, told Times of India that he will be welcomed amidst much fanfare.

“It is a great blessing for the Church in Pakistan to be blessed with a cardinal after 24 years,” Rodrigues said.

Peter Mendes, a Goan-origin parishoner from the Archdiocese of Karachi, told TOI that it is long overdue for the Church in Pakistan to have Joseph Coutts elevated as cardinal. “It’s a joy for the Christian community in Pakistan, but especially for the large Goan community here,” he said.

Coutts was born in Amritsar, where his father worked for Imperial Chemical Industries for half a century in Bombay, Karachi and Amritsar. He completed basic seminary training in Lahore, and was ordained a priest on January 9, 1971.

He then went to Rome to study philosophy and returned to Karachi in 1976, after which he worked as a professor at the National Seminary in Karachi. Coutts was appointed coadjutor Bishop of Hyderabad (Pakistan) in 1988 and took over as Archbishop of Karachi in 2012.

Archbishop of Delhi Anil Couto is his first cousin. Coutts has visited Goa on a number of occasions. On January 16, 2000, when Blessed (later Saint) Joseph Vaz was proclaimed patron of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman, Coutts was main celebrant.

(The Times of India)