New Delhi, April 22 -- Pope Francis was likely to visit India next year but his sojourn could not materialise after he breathed his last on Monday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Pope Francis twice - in 2021 and 2024 -and extended an invitation for him to visit India that the pontiff had accepted.
Union minister George Kurian, who visited Vatican City last December, said the much-awaited visit was expected to take place after the celebrations of the jubilee year of Jesus Christ's birth by the Catholic Church in 2025.
The last papal visit to India was in 1999 when Pope John Paul II came to New Delhi to preside over the concluding celebrations of the Special Assembly of Synod of Bishops of Asia.
He had met the then vice-president Krisha...