Pope meeting last group of Indian bishops

(September 16, 2011) The last group of India’s Catholic bishops is currently in Rome on their 5-yearly so-called ‘Ad Limina’ visits, and 11 of them from north India met Pope Benedict XVI at his summer residence of Castelgandolfo, outside Rome, on Friday. All heads of dioceses are required to make such visit every 5 years or so to report on the state of their jurisdictions. Those who met the Pope on Friday were: Archbishop Albert D’Souza of Agra, Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Delhi along with Auxiliary Bishop Franco Mulakkal, Bishops Isidore Fernandes of Allahabad, Anthony Fernandes of Bareilly, Oswald Lewis of Jaipur, Frederick D’Souza of Jhansi, Gerald Mathias of Lucknow, Francis Kalist of Meerut, Raphy Manjaly of Varanasi and Peter Elampassery of Srinagar.