By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi: The Church in India has bid farewell to Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro who has been transferred to Brazil.
The farewell was arranged through a virtual session, attended by 120 bishops from across the country.
Archbishop Diquattro has spent almost four years of diplomatic and pastoral service in India.
Presiding over the online meeting, Bishop Filipe Neri Ferrão of Goa and Daman, the president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, recalled the ninio’s meritorious services to the Church in India. “The CCBI is grateful to His Excellency for the excellent services rendered to the Church in India and to the CCBI,” the head of the Latin rite bishops in India said.
Cardinal Oswald Cardinal Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, recalled his personal and brotherly relationship with the outgoing nuncio.
In his words of reply, the nuncio expressed his thanks to the bishops in India. “I had the grace to live useful and fruitful moments of dialogue, discernment and communion with the bishops of India thanks to your dedicated, generous, competent support and collaboration,” said Archbishop Giambattista.
Archbishop George Antonysamy of Madras-Mylapore, the vice-president of the CCBI, welcomed the gathering. Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi, the secretary-general of the CCBI, delivered the vote of thanks. Archbishop Prakash Mallavarapu of Visakhapatnam led the virtual gathering into an initial prayer and Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta said the concluding prayer.
Archbishop Diquattro had been the apostolic nuncio to India and Nepal since January 21, 2017. Before coming to India, he had been the nuncio in Panama (2005-2008) and in Bolivia (2009-2017).