Will urge PM to align Pope’s trip & Exposition in Goa: CM

Panaji:Chief minister Pramod Sawant said on Saturday that he would request PM Narendra Modi to invite Pope Francis to Goa, and hopes the leader of the Catholic Church accepts the invitation.
The CM posted on X photos of Modi with the Pope during their meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy. “The PM admired his (the Pope’s) commitment to serve the people, and extended an invitation to the Pope to visit Bharat, and we hope the visit includes Goa,” he said.
“We will urge the PM to schedule the Pope’s visit to Goa during the decennial Exposition of the sacred relics of St Francis Xavier at Old Goa, to be held between Nov 21 this year and Jan 5, 2025,” said Sawant.
The Archdiocese of Goa and Daman has long followed the practice of holding the Exposition of the sacred relics of St Xavier, locally called ‘Goencho Saib’, every ten years. The last Exposition, in 2014-15, drew around 10 lakh visitors, and the Archdiocese is expecting the numbers to double this time. It has reached out to dioceses in the countries St Francis Xavier visited — Malaysia, Japan, and Indonesia — and invited them to send representatives to Goa for the Exposition.
The Archdiocese had said that these foreign dioceses have shown interest in their faithful making the pilgrimage to Goa. Additionally, several dioceses around India are also arranging pilgrimages to Goa for the Exposition.
The CM’s hope that Pope Francis visits Goa comes weeks after the Archbishop of Goa, Filipe Neri Cardinal Ferrao, issued a circular asking Catholics to vote for secular candidates who would uphold values “enshrined in the Constitution”. BJP lost the South Goa seat by around 15,000 votes, a loss that has been attributed to polarisation among minorities in the district.
However, this isn’t the first time Modi has invited the Pope to India. In 2021, the PM met him for the first time in the Vatican during a G20 summit. Vatican News had then reported that Modi gifted the Pope a silver candlestick and a book on commitment to the environment. The Pope reciprocated by gifting Modi a bronze plaque.