Indian Bishops on “ad limina” visit

(September 03.09.2011) Pope Benedict XVI met Saturday, the last batch of Latin rite Indian Bishops on their ad limina visit to Rome, namely Bishops, Peter Machado of Belgaum, Henry D'Souza, of Bellary, Anthony Swamy Thomasappa, of Chikmagalur, Robert Michael Miranda, of Gulbarga, Derek Fernandes, of Karwar, and Aloysius Paul D'Souza, of Mangalore. The meetings took place at the Pope’s summer residence of Castel Gandolfo. The ad limina visit of the Latin rite Indian Bishops began on Thursday and concluded on Saturday. The ad limina visit is obligatory every five years for Ordinaries (Bishops of Dioceses) to report on their jurisdictions. This year the ad limina visits of Indian Bishops began in March with those of the Syro-Malankara rite, followed by those of the Syro-Malabar rite. The 22 Bishops of the Latin Rite had their ad limina visit this year in three batches. The last group of this four phase Ad limina visit of bishops from India, the fourth largest Episcopal conference in the world, was led by the Archbishop of Mumbai, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, who described the meeting with Pope Benedict in an interview with Vatican Radio: as a very good opportunity for the bishops to speak about the situation in India, the challenges to be faced, the good news and also about hopes for the future. The Holy Father was very interested in knowing about the situation of how Indian Christians are treated, our efforts for inter-religious dialogue and also about how we go about our pastoral work, said Cardinal Gracias further. The Pope has still to meet the Bishops as a group and deliver his common message